
Qass. 



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*4 



BRIEF SURVEY 



GREAT EXTENT AND EVIL TENDENCIES 






LOTTERY SYSTEM, 



AS EXISTING IN THE 



UNITED STATES. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF A MEETING OF CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA, FAVOURABLE TO THE 
ENTIRE ABOLITION OF LOTTERIES. 



pu'laticljrtua: 

WILLIAM BROWN, PRINTER. 
1833. 



'XDMfM 1 






-/y 



V 



is' 



At a Meeting of a number of citizens of Philadelphia friendly 
to the entire abolition of Lotteries, held on the 12th day of Jan- 
uary, 1833, 

An Essay was presented and read by Job R. Tyson, Esq. 
who had prepared it in compliance with a previous request, 
upon the history, extent, and pernicious consequences of that 
species of gambling. 

Whereupon it was Resolved, That five thousand copies of said 
Essay be printed for gratuitous distribution throughout the 
United States. 

(Signed) THOMAS C. JAMES, Chairman. 

Attest — John M. Atwood, Secretary. 






At a Meeting of Citizens of Philadelphia, held at the Hall 
of the College of Pharmacy, 11th month, 1833, it was 

Resolved, that it is expedient to publish a second edition 
of the pamphlet by Job R. Tyson, entitled, " A brief survey 
of the great extent and evil tendencies of the Lottery Sys- 
tem, as existing in the United States ;" and that the author 
be requested by this Meeting to prepare the same for re- 
publication, with such additional facts upon the subject as 
he may have recently collected, for the purpose of being diffused 
through those states in which lotteries are still permitted to exist. 

THOMAS EARP, Chairman. 
Attest — Edward Yarnall, Secretary. 



PREFACE. 

The writer of the following sheets has been too une- 
quivocally admonished of the feelings already excited 
among the lottery trade, not to anticipate from a new 
publication some decided evidence of unpopularity. But 
stimulated by the wishes of those at whose desire the 
original essay was prepared, and sustained by a convic- 
tion that he was doing right, he could not yield to a re- 
luctance which was to be justified upon no higher ground 
than the abject fear of offending, or the dread of labour. 
In complying, therefore, with a second request, he feels 
solicitous that the additional facts and reasonings with 
which this edition is enlarged, should recommend it to 
the consideration of those friends of virtue and the 
country, of the other states, for whom it is specially de- 
signed. 

Whilst lotteries are allowed to exist in any one state, 
her sisters of the confederacy cannot be exempt from 
their pernicious influence. If tickets have been exten- 
sively vended in New Jersey, New Hampshire, and 
Massachusetts, after the abolition of their domestic sys- 
tems, and in direct contravention of penal enactments, 
it can fairly be presumed that no district in the coun- 
try, whatever may be its internal regulations, will be 
able to enjoy a perfect immunity. Signs may disappear, 
and even offices vanish, but in proportion as ingenuity 
is taxed, circumvention will be practised, and the evil 
which is now openly effected, will be accomplished by 
means of secret peddling. The design therefore is to 
diffuse correct information over the United States, in 
the hope that each member of the Union may he induced 



VI 

to relinquish a system which is so fraught with moral 
mischief and political calamity, as well to the state in 
which it prevails, as to her neighbouring and distant 
confederates. 

The facts here displayed have been obtained from 
an extensive examination of the subject, and a corres- 
pondence with well-informed individuals in different 
parts of the United States, Several cases have been 
received from unexceptionable private hands; some 
rest upon the authority of high public functionaries; and 
some upon the verity of the public records. Of those 
derived from other publications, few have been adopted 
without as minute personal inquiry as circumstances 
rendered it possible to institute. 

But the writer feels that the subject is susceptible of 
a much more forcible and eloquent exhibition than his 
leisure has permitted, or his abilities have enabled him 
to make. Many reflections which seemed to be new 
and striking, might easily have been indulged, had his 
object been less to present an epitome of facts than to 
write an attractive and philosophical treatise. The lit- 
tle time which he could snatch, by hurried intervals, 
from the pressure of other engagements, has been so 
exclusively devoted to the collecting, arranging and au- 
thenticating of facts, as to prevent much attention to 
the graces of composition. Literary excellence, how- 
ever, being of minor consequence in a task of this na- 
ture, he was satisfied with pursuing incontestable pre- 
mises to sound conclusions in the simplicity of familiar 
and perspicuous language. 

J. R. T. 

November 28, 1S33. 



INDEX 



Page 
Origin, and Introduction of the Lottery into Europe, 5 

America indebted to England for the Lottery, 6, 7 

The Lottery considered as a public measure, - - 8 et seq. 

Indefensible as a tax, 8 — 11 

Inconsistent with establishments for moral objects, 11 — 12 

Unprofitable as a means of revenue, ----- 13 
More seductive and diffusive than ordinary gambling, 14. 64-5 

Examination of witnesses by English Committee of 1808, 15 — 19 
History of the Lottery in England continued, - - 19 — 22 

Effects in this country, 22, 23 

Insolvency arising from the Lottery, - 23 — 36 

Chances of success in a Lottery considered, - - 23, 24 

List of insolvent persons who have sustained losses by specu- 
lating in Lotteries, - - - - - - 25 — 28 

Cases of pecuniary ruin from speculating in, - - 28 — 36 

Letter of John F. Watson, 34—36 

Embezzlements, frauds, larcenies and robberies, induced by 

the Lotteries, 36 — 50 

Ruinous effects of drawing prizes, - 50 — 59 

Intemperance and suicide resulting from it, - - 60 — 64 

Lotteries and other gambling compared, - - - 14. 65, 66 
Administration of Lotteries increasing their evils, - 67 et seq. 

The sale of foreign tickets in Philadelphia contrary to law, 67 — 69 
The number of Lottery Offices in Philadelphia, - - 67, 68 

The loss to Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, - - 68, 69 

The frauds practised, - - - - - - 69, 70 

The persons who buy Lottery Tickets, - - - - 71 

The means employed to induce a purchase, 71 

The buying of Lottery Tickets a business, 72 

Conclusion, --.-,--- 72—74 



Vlll 



The Lottery as established by law in New York, 
Virginia, - 

Ohio, Maine, Michigan, - 
Louisiana, - 
New Hampshire, - 
North Carolina, - 
New Jersey, - - - - 
Illinois, - 



75 

- 75,76 
76 
76 
77 
78 
78 

- 78,79 

Connecticut, 79 — 81 

Georgia, 81,82 

Missouri, .----. 82 

Alabama and Kentucky, - 82 

Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and Ten- 
nessee, .--..» 82 



A BRIEF SURVEY, &c. 



Gambling, by means of the lottery, is not of very mo- 
dern origin. Though it has been tolerated, and even fos- 
tered by Christian communities, it dates its birth so far back 
as a remote period in the history of the Romans. The 
uses to which it was applied among them, are faithfully de- 
lineated by Menestrier, a Jesuit father, who published the 
result of his researches about the close of the seventeenth 
century. 

The Christian world is indebted to the republic of Genoa 
for suggesting the idea of resorting to the lottery as a mea- 
sure of finance. From Italy it migrated into France, about 
the year 1580, where its history presents one dark page 
of poverty, wretchedness and crime. Its introduction 
into Great Britain was early, being nurtured and sus- 
tained by the paternal arm of government as a happy ex- 
pedient for raising money upon the principle of voluntary 
taxation. The first lottery mentioned in English history 
was established in 1567 ; and Maitland of Stowe informs 
us, that in 1569, two years after, there were but three 
lottery offices in the kingdom. A few years sufficed to 
bring an enormous accession to the number, and divers 

A 



statutes were enacted, to assuage, by restrictions and pen- 
alties, the malignity of their influence. But no emollient 
was equal to the emergency of its purpose ; a new genius 
awoke into being, competent to evade, by dexterity and 
stratagem, the provisions of each new law. At length its 
enormity had become too obvious and crying to be longer 
withstood without a serious inquiry into the means which 
had been employed for its palliation. That inquiry was 
made, and on the recommendation of a committee of the 
House of Commons, new guards were applied. Still checks 
were found to be but temporary alleviations, which, like 
most remedies of that nature, produced the effect of giving 
false security to the patient, rather than efficacy in coun- 
teracting the disease. Nothing less than the total abolition 
of the system, was capable of expelling a poison so deeply 
seated and pervading. 

It may well be supposed, that if it prevailed in England 
when this country was colonized, the policy would be ob- 
servable in acts relating to its early settlement. Accord- 
ingly, the second lottery granted by Parliament was author- 
ised in the reign of the first James, for carrying on the 
colonization of Virginia. The eastern colonies too, if not 
directly assisted, experienced the unhappy effects of the 
same spirit of legislation. So early as 1699, the "minis-*/ 
ters met at Boston, " felt themselves called upon to denounce 
the lottery as a cheat, and its agents as pillagers of the 
people. But notwithstanding this early denunciation of 
the system, and its recent extinction in England, the lot- 
tery has taken deep root and shot its noxious branches into 
many portions of the American Union. Legislative sanc- 
tion may here be seen given to this vice under the various 
pretences of excavating canals, building bridges, erecting 
school-houses, and endowing colleges, as well as for the 
construction of edifices devoted to worshipping the Deity! 
Unhappy indeed, that the lover of freedom should consent 






to aim a deliberate blow at his proud institutions; and that 
the Christian votary should inflict a deep wound upon reli- 
gion and morality with the ostensible view of aiding their 
promotion ! 

But whatever has been instrumental in the diffusion of 
lottery grants in the United States, the objects to which 
they have been applied are not more multifarious than their 
number and amount have been overwhelming. There now 
exist, in the different states, no less than twelve or fourteen 
lotteries which claim for their origin the authority of legal 
sanction. What the amounts hazarded in a single week 
may be, it is difficult to calculate with any thing like preci- 
sion. That it is even prodigious in amount, may be pre- 
sumed from the fact, that in the single state of New York, 
schemes have been issued, since the adoption of her new 
constitution, to the enormous sum of thirty-seven millions 
of dollars. In Pennsylvania, schemes issued under the 
authority of seven other states, are vended to an incredible 
amount, in direct and notorious violation of law. It could 
not have been anticipated by the provincial assembly of 
1762, when it prohibited lotteries with a striking preamble 
and a high penalty, that a few years would witness their 
multiplication to such an extent. This colonial legislation, 
whilst it displays the domestic feelings of the colonists, at 
an early period, likewise demonstrates the foreign origin 
of the lottery system. But this is more distinctly shown 
by the proviso of the act which saves from the general 
prohibition, " all state lotteries enacted and licensed by 
act of Parliament in Great Britain" There is no doubt 
that the parent country taught her imitative offspring to 
domesticate the lottery, by pointing out the uses which it 
might subserve. This fact informs us what is by no means 
unimportant, that the lottery is a weed which is not indi- 
genous to this soil ; that it did not spring up in this coun- 
try, the result of necessity or the dictate of pecuniary ex- 



8 

pediency. By adverting to the act referred to,* it will 
be found that our ancestors pronounced it to be a mis- 
chievous and unlawful game — to be detrimental to youth 
and ruinous to the poor — the source of fraud and dishon- 
esty — alike hurtful to industry, commerce, and trade— as 
it was baneful to the interests of good citizenship, morality, 
and virtue. Let us take a rapid survey of its tendency as 
a public measure, and of its operation upon those who 
come within the sphere of its influence, both as th© source 
of pecuniary emolument or ruin to its votaries, and as a 
meritorious instrument of adventure, or the means of idle- 
ness, dissipation, licentiousness and crime. 

The English Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed the 
lottery for a long series of years, as a justifiable public 
measure, on the principle of its being only a voluntary taxa- 
tion assumed by those who adventure. Can it, upon any 
just view of the subject, be regarded as a tax? Does the 
ostensible sum to be levied constitute the whole of the as- 
sessment? And is it equal in its operation, by imposing 
a burden on the citizen relatively commensurate with his 
pecuniary ability? 

A fundamental principle of all taxation, as recognised 
in the usages of civilized societies, is, that it should spring 
from some subject either of property or enjoyment. It is 
entirely consistent with the acknowledged principles of 
government that the citizen should pay for the enjoyment 
of a luxury as well as for the possession of his lands and 
houses; but that cannot with any propriety be called taxation 
which looks to no such substantive basis of assessment. No- 
thing exists upon which it can be founded. Does the ad- 
adventurer in the lottery, when he loses thousands in a single 
drawing, reconcile himself to his misfortune upon the inge- 
nious supposition, that he has only been paying his taxes? 

* Vide Note 1, Appendix. 



Does he embark in his purchases upon the ground of liqui- 
dating a debt due to the state, or because he indulges the 
delusive hope of obtaining a golden return? If he does not 
consent to his loss upon any but the principle of individual 
hazard, it is idle to speak of voluntary taxation. Things 
should be known by their appropriate titles. It is the 
grossest solecism, and for the purposes of artifice, to call 
the lottery a tax, while it is a contrivance for raising reve- 
nue out of the credulity,~the weaknesses, and the vicious 
propensities of the lower classes of the people. 

But the asserted right to raise money by lottery for 
other reasons, bears no resemblance to the taxing privilege. 
In the sum specified to be raised by any given lottery, the 
whole amount actually to be drained from the pockets of 
the people never appears. It is a striking feature of the 
system, that all is wrapt in concealment and obscurity. The 
proposition for example to raise by lottery ten or fifteen 
thousand dollars, which is to be expended in public charity 
or internal improvements, from the smallness of the sum, 
is not supposed to be worthy of serious remonstrance or 
opposition. As the grant confers only the power to offer a 
few tickets for sale, the purchase of which is free from con- 
straint, and resting wholly upon the volition of the buyers, 
no objection, it is thought, should be urged against it. And, 
when the destination of the sum is considered, it appears to 
be so meritorious upon the score of benevolence or public 
spirit, that the measure, from meeting at first with acqui- 
escence, is hailed with popularity. But is it taken into 
the account, that to raise so trivial an amount, sometimes 
requires the issuing of schemes approaching to a million 
of dollars? Let us refer to examples. Two lotteries in 
Maine, authorized in 1831, according to a calculation 
which has been made, issued schemes to the amount of 
sixty thousand dollars to enable them to leave a surplus in 
the treasury, beyond the expenses, of fourteen dollars and 



10 

twenty-one cents ! The legislature of Massachusetts granted 
to the town of Plymouth, in the year 1812, the privilege 
of raising by lottery the sum of $16,000, for the purpose of 
completing certain repairs in the Plymouth Beach. After 
the lapse of nine years, during which period classes had 
been drawn amounting in the aggregate to eight hundred 
and eighty-six thousand, four hundred and thii^ty-nine 
dollars , and seventy-five cents , it was ascertained that only 
nine thousand, eight hundred and seventy -six dollars, and 
seventeen cents was contributed to the object in view! 
Another remarkable instance is presented to the same effect, 
in the Union Canal Lottery, authorized by the legislature 
of Pennsylvania. This grant, which may be dated in 
1811, was to raise $340,000 for the purposes of the Union 
Canal. By a contract entered into with certain enterprising 
gentlemen of New York, schemes were permitted to be 
issued to an indefinite extent, upon the annual payment 
into the hands of the company, of the sum of thirty thou- 
sand dollars. In pursuance of this contract, and under 
the assumed authority of the grant, schemes were issued 
during the last year to the amount of five millions, three 
hundred and thirteen thousand) and fifty -six dollars. 
Including the sum of $6,479,136 as the estimate for the 
present year, schemes will have been issued by the last of 
December, exceeding altogether the astonishing aggregate 
of thirty-three millions of dollars !* If the career of this 
lottery, so unreasonable and portentous, had not been 
arrested at the last session of the legislature, it would be 
difficult to conjecture how many millions more would be 
assessed upon the people under the pretence that the 
amount of the grant had not been attained . It thus appears, 
that to collect a few dollars by means of a lottery, the 
assessment must be thousands; and if the object be to 

* Vide Note 2, Appendix- 






11 

accumulate a few thousands, no less than millions are to 
he extracted from the pockets of the people ! What in all 
probability would become of the fortunes of a nation 
whose infatuated government were to employ, as its only 
dependence^ system of taxation so insidious in its effects, 
and so absorbing in its requisitions? 

But the inequality of its operation renders the lottery 
equally oppressive and intolerable. Who are the chief 
contributors to this frightful and unheard of taxation? Are 
they the wealthy, the intelligent, and the wary — those 
who can afford to adventure, and are able to penetrate the 
subtleties of speculation — or the needy, the ignorant, the 
weak, and the desperate ? Seek information at the lottery 
office and the periodical drawings. Behold there the 
chimney-sweep, the servant, the apprentice, the clerk, 
the man of slender means ambitious of becoming suddenly 
wealthy ! Behold the large group of unprotected humanity 
whose fate the trammels of its fascination have so unresisting- 
ly secured ! These comprise the largest portion of the tax- 
ed — of those who are seduced by the splendid lures of the 
lottery craft. The want and distress which it occasions 
among these is a sufficient reason for branding it as one 
of the most iniquitous and mischievous systems of taxa- 
tion, so called, ever invented by human ingenuity. Its 
effects upon the indigent may be illustrated by a fact in 
the history of the lottery in Turin. For several days pre- 
vious to the drawings the usual supply of provisions was 
not carried to market, because, about that period the 
poor were in the habit of famishing themselves, with a view 
to embarking more largely in lottery adventures. 

As therefore the position of the Chancellor cannot be 
sustained, upon the acknowledged principles of taxation, 
let us view the lottery as a public measure in other aspects. 
Is it hurtful or otherwise to the moral sensibilities and 
general welfare ? — There are few governments which do not 



12 

wish to promote honourable sentiments and habitual indus- 
try among the people. This at least is the theory of most 
governments, which are framed on the principles of civil 
freedom and social equality. When we foster indus- 
try and reward genius, when we establish institutions of 
learning or give birth to those of benevolence, we intend 
to repress idleness and vice, and to bring into exercise the 
better dispositions of the mind and heart. Is it compati- 
ble with these intentions to choke the seeds of virtue and 
industry by offering encouragement to idleness, and giving 
nutriment to vice ? France, when she receives the enor- 
mous sum of twelve millions of francs per annum from 
her gambling tables and her lotteries, seems to act upon 
the principle that so large a sum in her public coffers, 
countervails the private injury which they are the means 
of inflicting. Thus it may have been with Great Britain, 
after enquiry and research had proved its ruinous influ- 
ences. Those States of our republican Union which 
adhere to the system of raising money by lottery, must 
likewise believe, if they reflect at all upon the principle 
upon which it is founded, that public aggrandizement is 
preferable to public and private virtue. But why is the 
public money expended for the suppression of vice ? For 
what purposes are houses of refuge and penitentiaries for 
solitary confinement? Why are schools established for 
moral and literary instruction at the public expense ? The 
lottery system is in direct conflict with the policy of these. 
The one seeks to benefit the morals of society at the pub- 
lic charge, and the other to raise money by the destruc- 
tion of morality. Is it consistent with enlightened policy 
to found institutions, whose professed object is to elevate the 
tone of popular virtue, while a system is permitted to remain, 
whose acknowledged operation is to impair or destroy 
their precious results ? Is it the perfection of wisdom in le- 
gislation to collect money by means of an agenUvhich fosters 



13 

vice, while immense sums are even generously expended in 
its suppression ? 

But this view proceeds upon an assumption that the lot- 
tery is profitable as a branch of revenue, which is by no 
means susceptible of demonstration. It leads its votary 
from the safe paths of provident thrift and sober industry 
to the labyrinths of visionary hope, and substitutes the idle 
dreams of speculation for the certain promises of reward 
for useful labour. When the energy of the character is 
laid waste by ignoble or inglorious pursuits, dissipation 
and extravagance soon render the victim incapable of sup- 
porting himself. From a respectable citizen he soon de- 
generates into a degraded pauper. It has been calculated 
in England where the lottery is merely a financial opera- 
tion for the benefit of the treasury, that the pauperism 
directly engendered by it, more than absorbs the revenue 
it yields. In this country where it has never been 
employed as the monetary handmaid of government, the 
vast expenditure arising from its concomitant pauperism, 
has no fund to which it can look for indemnity. We thus 
tolerate a system which induces domestic distresses, vices 
and crimes of every diversity, to raise money which is 
swallowed up by the public charges which it is the means 
of entailing ! If then the lottery be indefensible as a pub- 
lic measure upon any ground upon which it may be placed, 
we are reduced to the necessity of inquiring, whether it is 
permitted to exist without reflection and regardless of con- 
sequences, or because public opinion has not been enlight- 
ened on the subject of its enormity ? We believe the latter; 
and for the purpose of giving some exposition of its direful 
and lamentable effects, we propose to exhibit by well 
authenticated examples, some of the evils which owe to it 
existence. 

A comparison between lotteries and manual chance will 
convince any one that the lottery is the most seductive and 

B 



14 

injurious of all systems of gaming. We are not desirous of 
concealing any of the horrors of the Palais Royal of Paris,, 
nor of drawing a veil over the atrocities which are there 
committed, the fortunes that are wrecked, or the suicides 
which it leads to, but we might contend upon facts not to 
he controverted and upon reasoning plainly deduced, that 
the establishment of a Palais Royal in Philadelphia, or in 
any of our principal cities, is less earnestly to be depre- 
cated, because less diffusive in its influence than the conti- 
nuance of our present lotteries. For the purposes of a fair 
contrast, we may refer to Scott's Visit to Paris in 1814, as 
a book which gives a competent insight into that scene of 
debauchery. We select this single instance, because from 
the protection which play receives from the government 
of France, as a means of revenue, and from a peculiar 
proclivity in the passions of the people, gambling is there 
made to present a spectacle of abandonment and vice de- 
plorable without example. 

Can we oppose to a picture such as manual chance there 
displays, any thing so dreadful and terrific in the opera- 
tion of the lottery? It would be no difficult task to por- 
tray, by a stroke, in colours sufficiently dark and hideous, 
the true aspect of the latter, and ask whether the horrors 
of the Palais Royal would not dwindle in the comparison? 
Would it be difficult to show that if the lottery in Paris 
alone should bring nearly seven millions of francs annu- 
ally into the national treasury, and produce, according to 
Dupin, one hundred suicides in the same period, that even 
in France, it must present a black and abhorrent visage? 
But declining an extended comparison, because it can 
prove neither useful nor agreeable, w T e prefer to exhibit 
the effects of the lottery by cases and examples, and to 
substitute a series of dry but well authenticated facts for 
general description. 

Before we refer to the lottery as it exists in this coun- 



15 

try, let us review its history and effects in England, whence 
we have derived it. It will be recollected, that there the 
public coffers were supposed to be enriched by it as an 
instrument of revenue, and that it was guarded by laws of 
great severity. The committee appointed by the House 
of Commons in the year 1808, examined individuals upon 
the evils of the lottery in general, as well as in relation to 
its imperfections as a legal system. Crimes of every dye 
were found to be committed, suicides were frequent, and 
the extent of legal insurances which it introduced, were 
greater than could have entered into the imaginations of 
its enemies. The effect of recent enactments, which were 
intended to be remedial of certain abuses, formed a fruit- 
ful topic of inquiry by the committee. It was ascertained 
that these abuses still continued, notwithstanding the most 
cautious and watchful legislation ; and that no laws were 
competent to their suppression. In presenting a synopsis 
of that portion of the evidence which throws light upon 
the lottery in general, we may observe that no extracts 
can adequately convey an idea of the aggregate want, mi- 
sery, and crime, of which the system was shown to be the 
parent. — In the testimony of Robert Baker, Esq. a police 
magistrate often years standing, given before the commit- 
tee, several striking instances are related, which had come 
under his notice, of frauds committed, and of the facilities 
which were given to forgery. His decided opinion was, 
that the money obtained for the public, by no means com- 
pensated the evils and distresses growing out of practices 
connected with the lottery. One case is narrated, which, 
as it shows the class of people to which the lottery proves 
most prejudicial, we shall give in his own language: " I 
remember one very strong instance of distress four or five 
years ago. It was the case of a journeyman who' belonged 
to a club, which club purchased a lottery ticket which 
came up a great prize. The share of this man was ^100, 



16 

or thereabouts; he had been an industrious working man 
before, and he was persuaded by his friends to invest the 
money in the stocks in the joint names of himself and his 
wife, in order to prevent his making away with it. He 
did so ; but he soon got into habits of idleness, now he 
was possessed of the money. It was to this cause to be 
attributed that he changed his habits of industry to those 
of drunkenness and idleness, and destroyed all his domes- 
tic comforts. It was the ruin of the family." 

In a written statement which Baker subsequently sub- 
mitted to the committee, he expresses himself thus: 

ft I am most decidedly of opinon, that the lotteries have 
the worst possible effects upon the morals of the people, 
inasmuch as they afford a ground-work for, and give a sort 
of public sanction to, that spirit of gambling which is so 
prevalent among the lower orders. That the practice of 
insuring frequently occasions crimes there can be no doubt. 
That it produces distress to a very great degree is still 
more clear. — Another most serious evil, frequently arising 
from the same source, is the dissention and misery it oc- 
casions in families. — The bare possibility of obtaining a 
large sum in return for a small advance, is so strong an 
inducement with the lower classes to adventure, the in- 
genuity and profits of the persons whose interest it is to 
excite and keep alive in them the spirit of gambling are so 
great, that I am satisfied nothing short of the total discon- 
tinuance of lotteries will put an end to the mischiefs." 

He adds in the annotations subjoined to his communica- 
tion : 

u It is a common observation among manufacturers and 
master- tradesmen, that they find more difficulty in keep- 
ing the persons they employ steadily at work, during the 
drawing of the lottery than at any other time." 

The Rev. Wm. Gurney, who had been six years minis- 
ter of the Free Chapel of St. Giles, deposed before the 



17 

committee, that he found, in visiting among his parish- 
ioners, much of their domestic trials had their origin in 
the lottery : that it was the fruitful source of conjugal dif- 
ferences : that it was " a very general cause of distress ;' ? 
and that such was the infatuation of those who had once 
indulged, that money was thrown away upon adventures, 
" when the children have been starving, or at least want- 
ing the common necessaries of life." His own language 
in another part of his deposition, will better illustrate the 
severity of its inflictions upon the poorer classes of society 
than the most successful attempt at abridgment. 

" I know 7 of a family in Holborn," says he, " the Ust 
of whom died in an alms-house, owing to the lottery. This 
person was a widow. She was in a good line of business 
as a silk-dyer ; which I suppose brought her in about 
£ £40O a-year, clear. The foreman she had was in the 
hc?bit of insuring, he was led astray, and they insured to 
the amount of ,£300 or £400 a-night, although the fore- 
man had only £33 a-year wages. It appeared, on his 
decease, he hfcd insured immense sums of money. He died 
insolvent ; I acted as his executor, and paid three or four 
shillings in the pound for him. He had received a great 
many bills foi' his mistress, which he had never crossed 
out, and he ruined her. She was not able to pay three 
shillings in the p^und. She was obliged to go into an 
alms-house, and she died there in four or five months. A 
gentleman who drew the foreman into the snare was ruined 
by it. He formerly kept his carriage, and lived in Queen's 
Square. It was like intoxication with him. If a man 
gets into the habit he Oon't leave it. — I know of another 
very remarkable case. The man was a coachman. The 
family consisted of the man, his wife, and an orphan child 
they took care of. They resolved, as soon as they bought 
some tickets, to insure them, which they understood was 
legal. ' They got each of them one-sixteenth of a £20,000 



18 

prize, the coachman, his wife, and the child. From that 
time the man became a noted gambler in the lottery. He 
went out of his mind, and he was always raving about the 
lottery. He has since recovered his senses. His wife 
fretted herself to death. I attended her in her last mo- 
ments. — I have known several instances in which I have 
given money to relieve the distresses of persons gambling 
in the lottery, which has been taken from them imme- 
diately at my own door. To one woman I gave five shil- 
lings, to buy bread with for herself and her children. I 
gave it as treasurer to a benevolent society. Her husband 
took it away, and went to one of those collectors of in- 
surances and laid it out, and they were obliged to go 
the overseer of the poor to get relief that night, otherv 
they would have been starved. — There is another ins' 
of a young woman now at Botany Bay. She had i' 
three numbers, which she had dreamed about, 
procured money by improper means, which h 
her fate." 

William Hale, a silk-manufacturer, and tre Uie 

poor rates, gives it as his opinion, very em oally ex- 

pressed, that nothing is so pernicious to thf ^oor 

as the lottery — that it is the prolific pa rders 

and crimes — that no other mode of gar J be so 

baneful — and that its evils are inhe together 

irremediable. " If," he says, u I i jy opinion 

of the ill eifects of the lottery, of ence it has in 

corrupting the people, — and if I mirnt form that opinion 
from the appearances in SpitaM :\> } I should be led to 
conclude, that there is no ci' which conduces 

so much as the lottery to mr er orders of the 

people bad husbands, bad u children, and bad 

servants. I know no one I I has been productive 

of so many evils and so m as the lottery. There 



19 

is hardly a year but one or more have hung themselves, or 
cut their throats, from gambling in the lottery." 

On a second examination he said : " I have conversed 
with several persons who have had to do with parochial 
concerns, and they all agree in the beggary produced from 
this cause ; and I am convinced, that, independently of the 
depravity and guilt it occasions, there is more lost than 
gained by the lottery to government." 

The Rev. Brownlow Ford, the ordinary of Newgate, 
who had filled that station for the period of ten years, de- 
posed, that the lottery was the author of great poverty and 
■ stress — that it was the acknowledged origin of much 
ne — and that it was the occasion of bringing many per- 
- to the gallows. He says, "When I have put the 
i on to malefactors, 'What first drove you to crime?' 
wer has been 'It was poverty from buying and 
: in the lottery.' " 
idence of Hector Essex, a pawnbroker, who had 
business twenty-five years, is pregnant with 
proofs c>f the wonderful infatuation of persons engaged either 
in .rchase of tickets, or their insurance, by pawning 

plat Is, and the common necessaries of life, to 

obtaii hich was ventured and lost. He speaks 

of won 5 most captivated by the allurements of 

the gam r es, that discord and bankruptcy, the 

distress a,, dis m of families, always marched in its 

train. On^ is given of a female, who, though 

always tfhsu rsevered until her husband was 

ruined. Wh informed of the fact, he drowned himself 
in a fit of despair, i , 

Such are som th s elicited by the examinations 

of the committee of thi e of Commons, whose report 

led to enactments, ihey were considered, of the 

complicated and ace ed evils of the lottery. Other 

examinations show what it is here unnecessary to quote — 



20 



the ingenious and multiplied expedients of the lottery- 
venders for evading the laws, as well as the perfidy of the 
government officers in winking at transgressions, and par- 
taking of the fruits of illicit adventures. The whole re- 
port discloses a scene of iniquity so multiform, and of 
misery so hopeless, as to sicken and appal the mind. The 
restrictions intended by new statutes soon ceased to exhibit 
any mitigation in their effects, till at last the whole system 
was abscinded as the most noxious and venomous excre- 
scence that could deform the legislation or poison the 
moral atmosphere of England. This temporary suspension 
of the system was preceded by events which, perhaps, 
will ever be remembered in the annals of self-destruction, 
A scheme was formed in London, displaying several ma' 
nificent prizes of ,£50,000 and £100,000, which temr 
to ventures of very large amount, and the night c 
drawing was signalized by fifty cases of suicide ! 
these tragedies terminated, for a brief period, the care, 
of the lottery in the English Isle. — From facts r: this ti 
racter what opinion are we authorized to form >f thr. 
nitude of this evil? An evil which paralizes y, 

destroys domestic concord, saps the found ion c /ect 

principles, and leads to the commissio the • irkest 

crimes in the criminal calendar? Wh? ■ .o think 

of that legislation which can give it proi As well 

might a legislature cherish by the " )ouruy, a mon- 

ster whose pestilential and baneful breath scattered de- 
formity, disease, and death wid h over the country. 

But the immense revenue c a million pounds sterling, 
which at that time the treas* derived from the 

lottery, was too great a te» e long resisted. It 

was soon again introdu' o § t!r Budget, as an item, 

which, notvvithstandir t consequences in the 

extinction of revenu e of the finances" could 

not forego. Larg' n I re year after year levied 



21 

upon the people by this detestable expedient to fill the 
coffers of the treasury. It is related upon good autho- 
rity that the annual subsidy has seldom been less than 
a million since the period of the revolution. If it re- 
quired the issuing of schemes in the Union Canal to the 
amount of thirty- three millions for the purpose of collect- 
ing $340,000, we may presume that the annual sales in 
England must be startling. The evils of the system again 
invoked the attention of the British public in 1819, and a 
very interesting debate took place in Parliament. The 
propriety of its continuance was ably discussed by such men 
as Lyttleton, Buxton, Wilberforce, Canning and Castle- 
reagh. The whole subject was passed in review — its erro- 
neous policy — its irremediable mischiefs — its sure tenden- 
cies and ascertained results — but all gave way to the in- 
vincible necessity of it as a means of revenue. The com- 
mittee of 1808 had developed one pregnant and over- 
whelming fact which furnished to all arguments derivable 
from that source, a convincing and unanswerable reply. It 
was calculated that if the lottery were abolished, the 
increased' consumption of exciseable articles would more 
than countervail its loss to the treasury. In vindication of 
the system, the Chancellor, it is alleged, assumed a posi- 
tion which is irreconcilable with all sound principles of 
government and all orthodox notions of ethics. He is 
said to have asserted that as there was always floating 
in society a given quantity of vicious inclinations, he had 
a right to turn them to the best account, — that as the spirit 
of gambling was rife, he was justified, as a financier, in 
making it ancillary to the public burthens. It is not easy 
to decide whether such a sentiment is more incongruous 
with policy considered merely as a matter of profit, or 
repugnant to just and moral principles. Shall we pamper 
vices because they exist ! Is it enlightened prudence or true 
virtue to hold out lures to the simple, the ignorant, and 

c 



22 

the credulous, which, if successful, must debase their cha- 
racters and render them dishonest citizens or dependent 
paupers? But without formally controverting a dogma 
which teaches such erroneous doctrines, we may leave it to 
the silent reflection of the philanthropist, satisfied that he 
will discard it as unsound, false and illiberal. — In 1823 the 
lottery was again sought to be propagated, but the tide of 
popular feeling had so violently set against it as to require 
the salvo of a declaration that it was proposed for the last 
time. Whether it has not again been recently revived is 
not certainly known, but surely the British nation has been 
abundantly admonished of its intrinsic banefulness to aban- 
don it entirely. Upon the invention of Savings Banks, 
for the benefit of the poor, it w<as found to present the 
greatest impediment to their success, but during the pe- 
riod of its temporary discontinuance, these institutions 
recovered from their languishing condition, and gradually 
advanced in their deposits to the sum of fifteen millions 
sterling. 

If an investigation were made of its influence in this 
country, no cause of triumph would present as ah exemp- 
tion from any of the ills which it inflicted on England. 
Cases are numerous, exhibiting its effects in the production 
of insolvency and pecuniary distress, in exciting to the com- 
mission of extensive and multifarious frauds, and in lead- 
ing to suicide and other atrocious felonies. The only 
difficulty consists, not in the want but in the selection of 
examples, since, from the respectability of relations and 
friends, much delicacy is necessary in the mention of cir- 
cumstances. Though from this cause the names of the 
persons whose cases are subsequently detailed, may, with 
some exceptions, be suppressed, as well as the authorities 
upon which they are given, yet we pledge ourselves for 
the truth of most related, and can offer documentary or 
oral evidence of their accuracy. 



23 

If a committee were appointed by each of the state legis- 
latures to ascertain from living witnesses the effects of lot- 
teries, within their respective boundaries, a mass of pri- 
vate distress and public injury would be brought to light, 
the magnitude of which it is difficult to conceive. We 
should witness the severance of the closest and dear- 
est connexions of life ; the violation of the sacred vows of 
wedlock ; and the disruption of the tender ties of consan- 
guinity and nature. Woe, the most keen and heart-rend- 
ing, would meet our gaze in all the multifarious forms of 
hopeless bankruptcy, cheerless and unmitigated penury, 
incurable intemperance and infamous vice. But it may 
be well for the mind of sensibility — the reputation of the 
country — the cause of humanity — that most of these dread 
consequences may still be concealed. The colours of the 
picture would be too sombre — the scene, in its collected 
deformity, too hideous, for exposure to the open day. In 
attempting therefore a miniature sketch of the results 
which this engine of human misery and debasement has 
effected, we shall do all that is within our power in rang- 
ing and grouping together a few examples under appro- 
priate heads. 

INSOLVENCY. 

Though no other injury were to follow from this perni- 
cious system, its invariable consequence perhaps to adven- 
turers is their pecuniary ruin. As this partly results from 
the very nature of a scheme, it may be proper here to ana- 
lyse the probability of loss or gain arising from the relative 
amount of blanks and prizes. Most of the present schemes 
proceeding upon the principle of Ternary Combination, 
consist of any given number at the discretion of the 
managers. The number is so disposed by means of com- 
bination and transposition as to produce that amount of 



24 

tickets of which the number selected is capable. Perhaps 
the most usual number of the schemes now issued is 66, 
which will make 45,760 tickets, each containing three 
double numbers. As schemes of this number are com- 
monly drawn in ten ballots, the fate of the anxious ticket- 
holders can be ascertained in a few minutes. 

Let us suppose that in a lottery containing 45,760 tick- 
ets, there are twenty prizes of $1000, one prize of $5000, 
and one of $20,000, besides others of inferior amount. 
We decline any consideration of these merely because as 
the principal is the same, they are not requisite for the 
illustration ; and because the great majority of adventurers 
contemplate with keener avidity the glittering prize of 
thousands. Now what is the chance of a purchaser for 
either the prize of the one, the five, or the twenty thousand 
dollars? If he be the holder of a single ticket, his chance 
of getting the prize of g 1000, is by calculation shown to be 
as one to 2080. If he were to purchase that number of 
chances, and actually succeed in drawing the prize, he 
would expend at the ordinary retail price of a ticket, the 
sum of 810,400. From this deduct his prize, which, by 
the allowance of fifteen per cent, will dwindle to $850, 
and the result of the speculation will be the positive loss 
of nine thousand five hundred and fifty dollars. If he be 
desirous of drawing the prize of $5000, his reason to 
expect it might be said to be as one to 22,880. How 
remote the prospect of success! But the great object of 
his hopes is to obtain the capital prize of $20,000. His 
chance of obtaining this is in the proportion of one to the 
aggregate number of tickets in the scheme, that is of one 
to 45,760. Now if for the purpose of indemnity he pur- 
chased all the tickets in the lottery, we know that his loss 
would be immense. What fatuity to venture in a game 
where the hazards are so manifestly desperate ! But, it may 
be asked, is there no such thing as luck in the world ? 



25 

May not the holder of three tickets draw all of the prizes 
enumerated ? Assuredly, it is possible, but what would be 
the result ? One such instance of good fortune must inevi- 
tably be folloived by the loss, perhaps ruin, of the hun- 
dreds who have ventured in the lottery. 

The following transcript from the records of the Insolvent 
Court for the city and county of Philadelphia, is prepared 
from the petitions themselves, which are deliberately sworn 
or affirmed to by the petitioners. It may be observed, 
however, that it cannot be supposed to include all who 
have been driven to insolvency from this cause, in the dis- 
trict of Philadelphia, since the year 1830. Many whose 
losses in lotteries have been the principal occasion of their 
misfortunes, have suppressed the disclosure of them in their 
petitions, and the fact has only been elicited by examina- 
tions at the Bar. A large number, too, either from the 
indulgence of creditors or successful dexterity in eluding 
the clutches of the law, have never been driven into the 
Insolvent Court. The number here exhibited, however, 
is sufficiently great, especially when we reflect upon the 
domestic suffering which poverty always inflicts upon the 
families of the unfortunate. 

List of Insolvent Debtors who have speculated in Lottery Tickets in 1830-1-2-3. 

J. A. Petition for March Term, 1830, No. 7 

J. C. B. " " " " 

W.P. 

E. L. " " " " 

L. L. " " " " 

G. A. " " June " 

J. D. 

J. B. D. 

J. K. " '• ■ ■ 

J. R.,Jr. 

P. S. W. " " " " 

C. P. Y. ■ " " " 

A. S. u u Sept " 



7, 


Actual loss 8700 


15, 


Amount not known. 


126, 


U It U 


127, 


About 450 


128, 


About 450 


11. 


About 1600 


75, 


About 100 


77, 


Nearly 1400 


168, 


550 


252, 


1420 75 


319, 


About 4000 


329, 


1263 


218, 


350 



26 



T.W. 


D. B. 


C. L. C. 


G. M'L. 


J. B. 


J.S.F. 


G.W. 


A. G. 


T. T. C. 


A. F. K 


A.N. 


A. G. R. 


N.S. 



&Co. 



Term 


, 1830, 


No. 263, About $400 


Dec. 


K 


u 


7, More than 2500 


H 


H 


■ 


44, Nearly 400 


" 


" 


u 


130, Heavy and repeated losses. 


Harch 


1831, 


" 


27, About 100 


u 


« 


H 


73, About 2000 


u 


" 


" 


200, A fine for selling foreign lottery 
tickets, 2000 


u 


u 


« 


88, Amount not known. 


June 


It 


M 


52, About 75 


« 


H 


(l 


114, At least 5000 


« 


U 


n 


152, 200 


u 


« 


« 


171, About 500 


u 


U 


" 


199, Returns the following debts as 




due to hiir 


i, viz: 




G.W. 


for 


lottery tickets, $4500 00 



G. W. for 


lottery 


tickets, 


$4500 00 


* 


do. 


do. 


2700 00 


H. W. 


do. 


do. 


240 00 


J. F. 


do. 


do. 


250 00 


G. A. 


do. 


do. 


140 00 


J. L. H. 


do. 


do. 


250 00 


L.T. 


do. 


do. 


21 00 


J. H. 


do. 


do. 


7 00 


G. K. L. 


do. 


do. 


13 40 


J. F. 


do. 


do. 


48 79 


J.N. 


do. 


do. 


21 00 


J. T. 


do. 


do. 


11 00 


S. B. 


do. 


do. 


10 00 


W. B. H. 


do. 


do. and cash lent, 1100 00 


E. B. 


do. 


do. 


100 00 


G. R. L. 


do. 


do. 


22 00 


A. C. 


do. 


do. 


100 00 



The whole amount due him, is $9534 19 
The following lottery brokers are creditors : 

Yates & M'Intyre, of Philadelphia, $7000 00 
Robertson & Little, 900 00 

Yates & M'Intyre, of New York, 800 00 



Due his creditors, $8700 00 8700 00 



$18234 19 



Several of the debtors have been insolvent, who are returned in this list. 
* This debt has since been satisfied. 



27 

A. J. C. Petition for September term, 1831, No. 52, About $150 
j t g u » « " « " 87, Amount not known. 
yj Y, « « « " " " 100, At least 600 
\y. H. " " " " " " 131, says that he lost two or three 

hundred dollars. 
E. F. W. Petition for December term, 1831, No. 180. By tickets on hand, un- 
sold, About $2000 
And the petitioner as one of the firm of E. F. W. & T. P. are in- 
debted as follows : 

Yates & M'Intyre, note and book account, $1500 
Robertson & Little, do. do. do. 1500 

A. M. Nutt, do. do. do. 40 

$3040 

B. W. B. " " March " 1832, " 9, owes 

Yates & M'Intyre, $25000 00 
Paine & Burgess, 5000 00 



J. H. 


R. M. S. 


J. G. W. 


E.B. 


J. H. B. 


J. P. C. 


A. G. D. 


J.H. 


H.T.R. 



In all, 30,000 



' «• « " " " 80, Amount not known. 

« « « « » 185, $5000 

" " " " " 203, Has lost considerable sums 

in tickets drawn blanks. 
' * June " " " 5, $98 00 

i » » « " « 25, 4 62| 

' " " " " " 47, Amount not known. 

t m *» « t4 u 57^ U u u 

, I. ggpt^ ii a u 117> 

* « " « " M 236, The chief, and in fact, only 

cause of his present embarrassment, is owing to his 

having dealt to a very considerable amount in lottery 

tickets, and thereby sustaining great losses. 

J. H. Petition for December term, No. 97, $90 50 

J.H. " " " " " " 102, 36 00 

W. C. " " • " " " " 37, Has lost by having lottery 

tickets on hand, about $3000 00 

He owes Yates & M'Intyre, 503 43 
Robertson & Little, 1088 53 

J. J. Robinson, 2 00 

J. H. 20 00 



In all, $4613 96 



J. C. Petition for March term, 1833, No. 40, About $400 



28 

E. L. C. Petition for June term, 1833, No. 65, Upwards of $3300 

He owes Yates & M'Intyre, $1460 
Robertson & Little, 100 



$1560 1560 



F. F. " " June « 1833, No. 109, $7155 

J. M. S. B. " " March " " " 10, Returns Yates and M'In- 

tyre as creditors, amount unknown. 
P. S. C, " " March " « " 45, Lost considerably in lottery 

tickets, and returns the following lottery brokers as creditors : 
Robertson & Little, about $100 
• Yates & M'Intire, " 100 
A. M. Nutt, «• 30 

$230 230 

M. M. Petition for June term, 1833, No, 194. 

The petitioner states that he has lost a great deal of money by 
- adventuring . in lotteries, having, from the circumstance of drawing 
several years ago, about $1400, been induced to adventure again 
until he had sunk more money than he could spare, he was there- 
fore led on to embark further in the practice, under the hope of 
repairing his loses by some lucky train of fortune, a hope that proved 
delusive, and is one of the principal causes of his insolvency, &c. 
A. P. Petition for March term, 1823, No. 200, About $50 

A. G. R. " " June " " " 247, « 506 

U. W. " " " " " " 307. He drew in one of the lotteries 

about $6,250, which enabled him to discharge his old debts, and set him 
afloat again in business. Encouraged by his luck, he entered largely 
into lottery speculations, whei^by he lost great sums of money, of 
which he has no account. 
H. W. Petition for September term, 1833, No. 390, About $130 

p. W. " " " " " No. 387, Amount not known. 



The following statement is derived from a petition for 
the benefit of the insolvent laws. The narrative is signed 
as usual by the applicant, and given under the solemnity 
of an oath. 

"The petitioner became of age on the 24th of December, 
4828, and immediately commenced speculations in lottery 
tickets that he received from different sources other than 



29 

from lotteries, and at different times, about 975 dollars; 
the greater part of which he either laid out for tickets, or 
paid on account of tickets which he had before purchased : 
That he drew, at various times, prizes to the amount of 
4000 dollars, which he invested as soon as received, in 
other tickets, or paid for, on account of those which he 
had purchased before : That he has sunk in these specu- 
lations, in the short period of six months, all that he had, 
and has left him upwards of 3300 dollars in debt beyond 
his means to pay." 

To these a few cases of failure in business may be sub- 
joined, which rest upon individual authority of the best 
kind, for their veracity. 

W , of , failed in the autumn of 1832. He 

had been engaged in what appeared to be a profitable retail 
dry goods business. The cause of his defalcation was dis- 
covered to be the lottery, in which he had lost five thou- 
sand dollars, 

A respectable mechanic, a freeholder, and supposed 
to be in good circumstances, who was in the habit of pur- 
chasing occasionally a ticket, drew a prize, and after- 
wards increased his purchases. He was beset by the 
brokers at every drawing of a lottery to take the tickets 
remaining on hand — sometimes the loss would not be 
great, but generally, there was almost a total loss. On 
some occasions he was stopped by brokers on Sundays 
when about going to church with his family — alleging 
that news of a drawing would be in by the mail of that 
day. He continued his speculations about two years, and 
then stopped, with a loss of between fifteen and twenty 
thousand dollars, 

W — , a dentist, lost twenty thousand dollars by a long 



30 



Course of gambling in the lottery in connexion with C — — 
Both were completely ruined. 

" To . 



Sir — In compliance with your request to furnish you 
with any information I might possess of the injurious effects 
of lotteries, I beg leave to state, that I was intimately ac- 
quainted for many years with Mr. ; that he was an 

excellent mechanic, well acquainted with his business, 
which appeared to be prosperous, and was pretty exten- 
sive. 

He died in March, 1829, and I was called upon to assist 
at the examination of his papers, and became one of his 
administrators. We found a large number of lottery tickets, 
and his estate was entirely insolvent; those creditors who 
were not secured by judgments or mortgages got nothing. 

I have no hesitation in saying, that I think the lotteries 
were the principal cause of his ruin. He left a family en- 
tirely unprovided for, and his losses in lottery tickets must 
have been very great, and I cannot in any other way ac- 
count for the great deficiency in his estate. 
I remain, very respectfully, yours, 



J. R. 



19 



" A gentleman, worth some money, commenced the lot- 
tery business in the city of Philadelphia, about two years 
since, and did a very large business. He risked a great 
many tickets himself, and stopped with the loss of all he 
commenced with, besides being much indebted to the ma- 
nagers. A friend of this gentleman called on the managers 
to see what arrangement could be made about the balance 
due. The managers very readily informed him, that they 

should not trouble Mr. for what he owed them, as 

' he had not only ruined himself, but had broke more men 
than any other vender in so short a time.' " 



31 

** An individual, who was possessed of a handsome pro- 
perty, was induced to continue a series of speculations in 
tickets, until they caused his ruin, because a single ticket 
he once owned bore upon it the number next in order to 
the one that drew the highest prize. When he failed he 
owed one firm, in Boston, $3,000 for lottery tickets, and 
another in Hartford, Connecticut, $500." 

" A man of good character and probably worth several 
hundred dollars, who was pursuing a respectable business 
that gave him an income sufficient to support himself and 
family, and leave a surplus of something like S500 per 
annum, has lately been ruined in property by speculations 
in lotteries. In 1831 or 1832, he commenced purchasing 
tickets to large amounts, which, he says, he was induced 
to do, by the urgent solicitations of a lottery broker. In 
the autumn of 1832 he failed, owing about $5,000 over 
and above his means of paying, most of which was for lot- 
tery tickets, or for money borrowed with which to pur- 
chase them. After his failure, his friends remonstrated 
with him in regard to the ruinous consequences of this 
kind of gaming, and, for a time, he yielded to their per- 
suasions. In the beginning of 1833, however, influenced 
by the advice of a supposed friend, who had been fortu- 
nate in the game, he was induced to renew his specula- 
tions. In February last, he was cited to appear before a 
Grand Jury of Boston, when his folly was exposed, and he 
was found to be still further involved to the amount of 
$800 or $1000." 

The following are extracts from a letter, dated Port- 
Sand, 1833. 

" A dealer in lottery tickets, who has been engaged in 
ithe business for nine years, has retired from it poor. He 
;gives as a reason for having continued it so long, that he 



32 

Was urged on ' by a strange infatuation, hoping that for* 
tune would at some time bestow her favours on one who 
had so often courted her smiles/ and adds that he has 
< found, by sad experience, that all such hopes are worse 
than vanity/ 

" Several mechanics and traders, who were in good 
business in this place, have been entirely ruined in pro- 
perty by dealing in tickets. Some of them were stripped 
even of their furniture. A young man of a very respect' 
able family, commenced business a year or two since, and 
was subsequently married to a lady of this city. Soon after 
which, the elegant furniture given his wife by her father, 
was attached for the payment of a bill for lottery tickets, 

11 It is asserted by one who has the best means of infor^ 
mation, that seven men in this city have lost by lottery 
tickets in five years, one hundred thousand dollars. 

" A farmer in this vicinity yielded to the enticements of 
this species of gaming, and in a few months, his farm and all 
his property were taken from him as the result of his folly, 
and he was turned houseless and without a home into the 
wide world, to seek in poverty, a livelihood which he 
once enjoyed in competency." 

" At the late term of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, 

county of Norwalk, held by Chief Justice Hosmer , 

a bill in equity was brought by James Jennings vs. Samuel 
Sherwood, stating that the petitioner was a man of weak 
understanding, and that the respondent, taking advantage 
of his weakness, had, by promise and persuasion, induced 
him to purchase lottery tickets to the amount of nearly 
86000, from January 7th, to July 26th, 1830; and on the 
day last mentioned, had procured a note and mortgage for 
the amount of the loss on the tickets, for the sum of two 
thousand four hundred and sixty-four dollars — praying 
that the said note and mortgage be rescinded and adjudged 






33 

void. The petitioner failed to prove the allegation of the 
weakness of his understanding, and his petition was nega- 
tived. — (Norwalk, Conn, Gazette, 1831.) 

We give the following upon the authority of a New 
York newspaper. 

il A respectable gentleman of the society of Friends in 
this city, relates the following incident: — A farmer of his 
acquaintance in the country called on him to procure a 
loan of three thousand dollars, on a mortgage of his valu- 
able farm. The gentleman had the money to spare, was 
satisfied with the security, and was free to accommodate 
his old acquaintance — but he wondered exceedingly why 
the money was needed. After much inquiry, the fact 
was elicited. The farmer was indebted in that sum to a 
firm of lottery venders in this city, for sundry purchases 
of tickets/' 

A person, several years ago, drew a prize of fifty thou- 
sand dollars, for which he received in cash forty-two 
thousand fi\^ hundred dollars ; but this was not enough 
to pay the demands against him for lottery tickets. He 
owed at the time forty-five thousand dollars to the bro- 
kers." 

The following letter, from John F. Watson of German- 
town, will conclude our catalogue of cases under the head 
of insolvency. It contains facts illustrative of the means 
which are practised by the trade to allure the adventurer 
to his ruin. 



34 

" Germantown, Sept. 23, 1833. 
"Dear Sir, 

"The measures which you and an association of gentle- 
men have taken for the attainment of sundry facts in the 
history of lotteries, induce me at this time to communicate 
to you the case of an individual of this town. I do it cheer- 
fully, because the individual is a remarkable instance of the 
seductive influence of lotteries — even upon sober, indus- 
trious, prudent men. 

" Mr. J W I have known as an amiable, 

honest, and industrious mechanic, twenty years. He is a 
resident of this town, and his case and character are here 
familiar to the most of us. Somewhere about the year 
1818-19, he became acquainted with the usual allurements 
held out by lotteries ; and being himself simple in heart, 
and an utter stranger to the wiles of trade and traffic, he 
gave his confidence to those heartless promises of the bro- 
kers. He made at first some small purchases of tickets — 
enough however to introduce his person to the trade — and 
in a little while began his career, by purchasing, at one 
time, to the amount of three hundred dollars in the Penn- 
sylvania Union Canal. About the same time he purchased 
a ticket in the New Jersey Navigation Lottery, in which 
he drew ten thousand dollars, the second highest prize. 
The reputation of such a windfall brought him into ac- 
quaintance with sundry brokers and dealers in lotteries, 
and he was soon induced to invest sundry sums in sundry 
lotteries of their recommendation. He was the more 
inclined to this, because the fortunate ticket, on a variety 
of demurs, had not been paid to him ; and fears were ap- 
prehended that he would lose it, which were finally realized 
— for he never received but about half of it. 

"Among the brokers with whom he did most business 
was John Gibbs, to whom he paid, at various times, upon 
sundry notes, probably as much as $5000! and in all these 



35 

payments he had no prizes worth his mention or remem^ 
brance, save two prizes of $1000 each, in which J. Gibbs- 
was a joint partner. In looking over a parcel of cancelled 
notes, which had been paid to Gibbs, I found the sum of 
$2400, in ten notes, varying from $50 to $500, in the 
years 1823-4, and generally payable " at the conclusion of 
the drawing" of a given lottery. He was thus freely 
credited, while his stock of money lasted. Sometimes his 
purchases amounted to SlOOO, often to S500, and, finally, 
as he exhausted his means, down to notes of $50 a risk. 
To use his own words, his broker was kind enough while 
his purse was full; but when he once asked him, for 
a temporary convenience, to lend him only twenty-five 
dollars, he declined, roughly and sneeringly. He said, 
Gibbs' way was to say, " Faint heart never won fair 
lady" — " You must try again" — " Once more" — and 
thus be went on. He said, on a note of g300 or g400 
when due, he only had a credit of about $100 of it for 
prizes. I understood that he often left the whole sheets 
of tickets with Gibbs — and he to credit the prizes of 
them, and take the difference in money. 

" I felt compassion for the sufFerer ; and because I knew 
the frank and artless character of the man, I had taken 
occasion to seek into and find out some of the leading inci- 
dents in his case. Had I known some of them earlier, 
myself and others might have interposed to save him ; but 
his peaceable, quiet habits, kept him so much within him- 
self, that none of us knew he was thus wasting his reputed 
$10,000, until we found him actually no longer able to 
conduct his trade as a master, but putting off his appren- 
tices and taking to out-door labour, at the small pittance 
of seventy-five cents a-day! He bears his change with 
remarkable calmness and submission, and wholly free from 
that usual refuge of the disappointed — strong drink. He 
is now a good and an esteemed man. 



36 

" I ought perhaps to add, in relation to his $10,000 
prize, that he only received $4000 of the treasurer, J* 
Harrison, in two payments; for the rest, he had to insti- 
tute suit at Trenton, and the result was, that by some 
compromise he only realized something like $1200 for all 
the residue! By the terms of the lottery, as I understood 
it, the commissioners were personally accountable for its in- 
tegrity, and how these gentlemen could compromise or 
compound a settlement, I could never understand, and the 
sufferer himself could never comprehend, as he said. 

" These facts are at your service, to use as you see fit- — 
I give them upon the responsibility of my name and 
honour. 

"Yours respectfully, 

"John F. Watson. " 



EMBEZZLEMENTS, FRAUDS, LARCENIES, 
AND ROBBERIES. 

It is in the regular course of events that lottery specu- 
lations should finally plunge the speculator into deep and 
complicated guilt. He becomes poor by successive losses 
— his poverty leads him to petty villanies — he slowly pro- 
ceeds from one impropriety to another — till at last his 
feelings become blunted, and his reputation is tarnished. 
Low dissipation, and idle phantasms of golden showers, 
from being long indulged, have so impaired his faculties 
and weakened his character as wholly to destroy his ability 
for any useful pursuit. He looks around for assistance, 
but the avenues are closed ; — he is in debt beyond the hope 
of extrication — his native energy is gone — his respecta- 
bility is wasted. Thus prepared for some reckless effort 
to repair his fortunes, where can he seek protection but 
from the principles he has imbibed, what counsellors can he 



37 

listen to but his desperation and necessities? We quote 
cases in elucidation. 

We first give an extract from a letter written by Joseph 
Watson, Esq., formerly Mayor of Philadelphia, who, in 
addition to his general testimony, gives an affecting in- 
stance of moral aberration in the decline of life. 

u I do not think it necessary, says he, to go into a detail 
of a number of cases that occur to my remembrance of the 
awful effects produced on individuals and families by the 
infatuation of lottery gambling. I have known individuals 
of former good repute and standing in society, who, in 
bitter agony of feeling, have declared to me, that they 
were guilty of breach of trust, larceny, or other crimes, 
induced solely by gambling in lotteries, and vesting all 
their property, and that of others entrusted to them, in 
tickets. I will state to you a single case, some time, I think, 
in 1827. A gray-headed old man, of gentlemanly appear- 
ance and acquirements, was brought into the police office, 
charged with picking a pocket ; his trunk was searched^ 
and in it were found lottery tickets, plans, and schemes, for 
many past years. Being asked why so great a quantity of 
these were found in his possession, he answered, in sub- 
stance, that they were the product of his lottery dealings 
for the last twelve or fifteen years, within which period he 
had actually squandered or expended for tickets as many 
thousand dollars, without at any time having been success- 
ful, except in trifling prizes — that he had recently spent 
his last dollar, his last ticket had come out a blank, and to 
prevent starvation, he had made the attempt for which he 
was brought up. This man, it was believed, had previously 
maintained an irreproachable character. I think he died a 
convict, in Walnut street prison." 

The following instance of wrecked happiness and fame, 



38 

is from the pen of an estimable gentleman, whose charac- 
ter is a full guaranty for its correctness. We merely 
abridge his narrative by excluding extraneous circum- 
stances. 

u A young man, of respectable family, was in the employ 
of an extensive mercantile house in this city. (Philadel- 
phia.) For a number of years he conducted himself with 
great propriety and fidelity, married an amiable young 
woman, with whom he lived happily, and had an interest- 
ing little family growing up around him. His salary was 
such as to enable him to live comfortably and respectably, 
with a proper attention to frugality. For some time pre- 
vious to the sad development of his dishonesty, there was 
an obvious change in his countenance and conduct at home. 
He became irritable, and showed some unkind ness to his 
wife and children. One morning he was missed from the 
counting house * * *. He had eloped — and left his wife 
and children in a situation even more distressing than that 
of the widow and the fatherless. A note was found ad- 
dressed to his employers, stating that he had been tempted 
many months before to purchase a lottery ticket, the pos- 
session of which had excited an insatiable thirst for buying 
more. That he had gone on for a considerable time, occa- 
sionally elated by obtaining a prize, and at other times 
almost in despair, racked with anxiety and suspense, and 
tortured with the fear of the consequences which must re- 
sult from the iniquitous course he was pursuing. But the 
passion for this dreadful species of gambling had com- 
pletely infatuated him — he exhausted his own funds in the 
purchase of tickets, and reached forth his hands to em- 
brace the money of his employers. The compunctions 
which he first felt for so disgraceful an act, were soon 
drowned in the vain and false hope of retrieving his ruined 
fortunes. Again and again did he appropriate their mo- 
ney to gratify his unholy appetite for lottery tickets, con- 



39 

triving by false entries to conceal the robbery — until at 
length the sum became so great that it could not longer 
be kept a secret. Unable to face the degradation and re- 
proach which must ensue, he took the desperate resolution 
of abandoning a faithful and affectionate wife and his help- 
less children, and absconded, leaving them destitute of 
almost every comfort. The sum of which he had de- 
frauded his employers amounted to thousands of dollars." 

The pernicious and destructive influence of the sys- 
tem is justly depicted by the Hon. John Sergeant, in 
a speech which he delivered in Congress in the year 
1829. We extract a brief passage, as well for the 
intrinsic value of the testimony, as for the case which 
is related in elucidation : — " So great," says he, " is 
this temptation in its actual results on society, that in a 
thousand cases it has urged men to the commission of 
acts which brought them to a jail, if not the gallows. He 
adverted to one very affecting instance in illustration of his 
position. It was the case of an aged and highly respecta- 
ble man of character, till then unblemished, and of such 
standing as to bring him into an office of great trust in a 
monied institution. In consequence of a defalcation in 
the funds, the gray hairs of this unhappy man were brought 
down to the lowest state of ignominy, by his being tried 
and convicted for purloining the money of the institution. 
It was found on examining into the case, that all this amount 
of funds had gone into a lottery office. The man had been 
dealing in lottery tickets a long time before, (in tickets 
authorised by law,) but being unfortunate, he yielded in 
despair to the force of a propensity which sometimes gets 
the mastery of the strongest minds, and which is sure to 
make an easy conquest over weak ones." 

The ca6es which follow are derived from unexception- 
able sources, and are believed to be substantially true. 



40 

The case of C g is well known by many persons in 

this city. He was teller in the Mechanics' Bank, sustained 
an unexceptionable character, and had an interesting 
family around him, to which he was aifectionately at- 
tached. His income was sufficient for his comfortable sup- 
port, but attracted by the splendid prizes in lottery 
schemes, in which the price of a ticket was fifty dollars, 
he embarked, and purchased to very large amounts. It 
is calculated that he lost about ten thousand dollars by his 
lottery adventures. Necessity induced fraud, and he lost 
his situation in the bank ; he became poor in purse and 
despicable in principle ; and he died in a miserable con- 
dition — an object of disgrace and scorn. 

A young man of the utmost respectability was gradually 
drawn into gambling in the lottery. He purchased to such 
an extent beyond his means, that for the purpose of pay- 
ing the lottery broker, he was obliged to have recourse to 
overdrawing the bank. This he did to the amount of five 
thousand dollars. 

A married woman of respectable character commenced 
gambling in the lottery. She lost a large sum, which she 
had secretly abstracted from the desk of her husband — 
the result of his hard earnings. Becoming alarmed and 
unhappy from the apprehension that he would miss the 
money, she submitted to prostitution to enable her to re- 
place it. The facts were subsequently developed, and the 
family, in consequence, " were ruined and broken up. ; 



?> 



A young man, a clerk in a wholesale store, was tempted 
to try his fortune in the purchase of tickets. To carry 
on his purchases he was obliged to borrow money upon 
the credit of his employer. The fraud was finally de- 
tected, and an investigation resulted in finding him a de- 



41 

faulter to the amount of eighteen hundred dollars. He 
was, besides, indebted one thousand dollars to the lottery 
brokers. 

There is another instance of a clerk in one of our most 
respectable counting houses, who, from his losses in the 
lottery, was induced to embezzle money entrusted to him 
for deposite in bank, alleging that the amount was less 
than represented. The frequent recurrence of the trick 
led to his detection. The total prostration of his charac- 
ter and ruin of his prospects, were the consequence. 

" A young man, clerk in a highly respectable store in 
Market street, with a salary rather exceeding his expenses, 
was in the habit of spending the excess in the purchase of 
lottery tickets; the brokers became acquainted with him, 
and commenced taking tickets to him at his residence ; 
after some time he purchased by the package, leaving the 
tickets with the brokers, they to pay themselves out of the 
prizes, and return him the overplus — the costs generally 
exceeding the amount of the prizes, he gave his notes for 
the difference. At one time, being pressed for money, he 
borrowed money in the name of his employers, expecting 
to refund it from the profits of a lottery to draw in a day 
or two; he was unsuccessful — his employer was called on 
for the money borrowed — discovered the transaction and 
dismissed him from his employment — he was sued by one 
of the brokers, and took the benefit, indebted to lottery 
brokers about §3000." 

u About four years ago, a young man entered into the 
employ of a respectable cabinet-maker in this city, as a 
journeyman — in which situation he continued about two 
years, conducting himself while under the notice of his 
employer with great propriety. His industry and appli- 



42 

cation to business were such that his weekly earnings were 
generally greater than those of any person hired in the 
establishment. The exemplary manner in which he con- 
ducted gained him the esteem and confidence of his em- 
ployer, who frequently entrusted large sums of money to 
his care — and his weekly bills for work were made out 
with so much accuracy and fidelity that they seldom needed 
any correction. Thus he continued for a considerable 
length of time, giving entire satisfaction both in the per- 
formance of his work, and also, in the sobriety and steadi- 
ness of his deportment At length it was observed that 
his dress became shabby and neglected, and he was mostly 
very bare of money — so that it was a subject of surprise 
and wonder what he could do with his money. One article 
of apparel after another disappeared, until he was left 
almost without clothing, and eventually he sold his last hat 
for a dollar. Suspicions had, before this time, been ex- 
cited, that he had fallen into some evil habits, and it was 
found that the proceeds of his hat were expended in the 
purchase of a lottery ticket! Here, the sad mystery of 
his poverty was at once unveiled: his earnings had been 
squandered in this worst species of gambling. Again and 
again he had lost, and still seduced by the vain hope of 
retrieving his ruined circumstances, in the desparation 
which such a course usually leads to, he determined to 
make one more attempt — to "try his luck" once more, 
and, in order to do so, he sold the only hat he had to wear. 
But, as is usual with all lottery gamblers, he lost again ; 
and, dreadful to relate, in the extremity to which this 
wicked system generally brings its deluded victims, he was 
tempted to commit forgery. The principle of honesty 
and sense of shame, already weakened by the debasing 
practice of dealing in lottery tickets, proved too feeble to 
withstand the temptation, and he forged a cheek for two 
hundred and fifty dollars ! Detection soon followed the 



43 

commission of this dishonest act — he was tried, convicted, 
and sentenced to solitary confinement in the penitentiary — 
where he now deplores his first yielding to the purchase 
of a lottery ticket, which has blasted his hopes and pros- 
pects for life, and stamped a character, once fair and hon- 
ourable, with infamy and disgrace." 

u A man about sixty years of age, of good appearance, 
was convicted at Philadelphia of attempting to rob a fellow 
lodger. In answer to questions put to him by the mayor, 
he stated that he was reduced to poverty by gaining in 
lotteries; that he had spent within the last forty years 
$23,000, or more than $500 a year, and that he had never 
drawn a prize of any importance." 

"A clergyman, who was preaching for a small church 
and congregation at the south, was sent by his people to 
New York and New England to collect funds by subscrip- 
tion to build them a place of worship. At New York he 
collected $600. Finding this a tardy way of accumulating 
money, he thought a prize in the lottery would be expe- 
dient. He therefore expended his $600 in tickets, and 
waited impatiently for the day of drawing. The day ar- 
rived, but he drew no prizes of any amount. He then 
applied to a friend for advice, who, with a few other be- 
nevolent individuals, compassionating his situation, made 
up his loss — and he sent the money to his people. He 
afterwards collected $300, and again repaired to the lot- 
tery office. He failed of drawing a prize, and was a second 
time destitute of funds. He was, however, the owner of 
some property, which he pledged for $200; and being 
fortunate in drawing a prize of $100 — he sent the amount 
to his people. He then came to New England. Here he 
collected $400, and then returned to New York, and again 
this deluded man expended his money for tickets, but drew 



44 

no prizes. After this third attempt, he could obtain no 
relief or sympathy from any one, and in consequence lost 
his character, abandoned his profession, and during the 
month of October, 1830, was in this city seeking some 
menial employment. — From folly, this individual passed 
on to crime, and from one grade of crime to another, till 
he was guilty of the grossest act that can stigmatize the 
character of man, and is now safely lodged in the state 
prison." 

i( A young man, secretary of an assurance office, a few 
years ago, drew a prize of eight or ten thousand dollars. 
He continued to purchase tickets until he expended the 
whole sum. He then forged certificates of stock, sold 
them, and absconded with a female of abandoned charac- 
ter." 

" An account was made out by a young man of this city, 
which exhibits a melancholy picture of juvenile delin- 
quency, induced by the temptations held out by the false 
promises of the lottery. The account consists of various 
articles, comprising gloves, handkerchiefs, suspenders, &c. 
which the young man had stolen from his employer, a dry 
goods dealer, to the amount of $104 53, and which he 
disposed of at prices much below their real value, to seve- 
ral lottery ticket dealers, whose names he specifies in the 
account. He says he was led to purloin the articles from 
his master in the hope of gaining money in the lottery, and 
with the intention of then refunding the amount he had 
stolen. Annexed to the account is the following certifi- 
cate; signed by the young man, and witnessed by a neigh- 
bour of his employer. 

" Boston, \2th November, 1832. 

" I stole all the above goods from store, No. — 

Washington street, Boston, at different times, from 1st 



45 

April, 1832, to 12th November, 1832. I do hereby ac- 
knowledge that I did this wicked act, and sold them to the 
persons above described." 

(Signed) «** #### 

Attest, **** **## 

The following is extracted from the Boston Atlas, for 
November 23d, 1832. 

" A young man about nineteen years of age entered a 
lottery office in exchange street yesterday morning, and 
bought a part of a lottery ticket, which he paid for with 
a pair of new gloves and a black silk handkerchief. A 
person who kept his office in a part of the same room, no- 
ticed the circumstance, and after the young man retired, 
he advanced and inquired of the vender at what price he 
had taken those articles. The vender answered that he had 
allowed forty cents for the gloves and sixty for the hand- 
kerchief. Being a judge of the value of the articles, and 
knowing their estimated value could not be less than three 
dollars, he took them from the lottery vender and pro- 
ceeded into Washington street, with a determination to 
find the young man, and ascertain whether his suspicion 
that they had been stolen was well founded. After show- 
ing them at several stores, they were recognised, and the 
young man identified. When charged with having frau- 
dulently obtained the property, the young man made a 
full confession, and stated that he had been in the habit of 
depredating upon his employers property for some time, 
in order to raise money to buy lottery tickets. What has 
been done with the delinquent we have not been informed. 
This is another glaring and startling instance of the mis- 
chievous consequences resulting from lotteries. Here is a 
young man, probably ruined for life — whose character was 
unblemished — who was tempted to a course of vice and 

F 



46 

crime merely to buy a lottery ticket — to make his fortune! 
Let young men take warning from his example." 

The following extract of a letter with the narrative ac- 
companying it, which we have taken the liberty to abridge, 
is given without comment. It is from a source entitled to 
credit. 

"The little but painful narrative which accompanies 
this, is a faithful picture of woe and misery, witnessed for 
the most part by myself; and it is with the consent of the 
parents of the unhappy subject of it that I now give it you 
for publication, hoping it may be the means of saving many 
from the fatal gulf." 

" At the age of 15, W. G. was placed in a highly re- 
spectable mercantile establishment in this city. On the 
expiration of the first year of his probation his employer 
agreed to give him, on account of his attention and regard 
to his interests, a small salary of seventy-five dollars per 
annum. For his third year he received one hundred and 
fifty dollars per annum, as a proof of the estimation in 
which he was held by his master. He was the joy of his 
parents, and was esteemed by all who knew him for his 
amiability and intelligence. But alas! before his nine- 
teenth year, a black porter, who was engaged about the 
store, had unfortunately drawn a small prize — and the 
glowing colours in which he painted lotteries induced 
William to become a buyer. He did so, he said, with a 
resolution that he would only try once — and that as it was 
his first, it should likewise be his last attempt. The se- 
quel will prove the futility of vows when once there has 
been an adventure of this kind. His first ticket, which 
was a quarter in a Delaware lottery, and cost him one dol- 
lar, fatally came up a prize, as the vender termed it, and 
realized eighty-seven and a half cents — to which he was 
induced to add enough to purchase two halves in a New 



47 

York scheme. He soon became a regular purchaser, his 
weekly earnings being devoted to his gambling speculations. 
For some time his success was doubtful, and he felt no need of 
drawing from other sources ; but soon increased excitement 
called for fresh and larger supplies. His little fund, which 
in earlier years he had prided himself in saving, was now 
made subservient to his gaming and vicious propensities. 
It was, in a little while, completely swallowed up. — At 
this early season of his career his parents saw, with some 
degree of concern, that his habits had undergone a change. 
He dressed more gaily, was out more at night, and treated 
them with an unexpected and unusual reserve, though he 
still preserved so much of his former self as not to excite 
a suspicion of what the real, the mournful cause was, and 
they attributed his alteration to what is apt to take place 
when youth is merging into manhood. He was now in the 
receipt of three hundred dollars per annum, but his ex- 
penses were double his means. Sometimes, holding tick- 
ets which the morrow's drawing was to decide, he would 
madly plunge into revelry in the expectation that good 
fortune would repair his losses. The morning however 
never failed to see him the victim of hopes prostrated and 
prospects blighted. His salary being totally insufficient 
for the life he led, and the lotteries having complete- 
ly taken possession of his soul, in a moment, an unhappy 
moment of excitement, he appropriated the money of 
his employer. The confidential situation he held ena- 
bled him, for a long period, to avoid detection; and 
he even resorted to the plan of pawning goods to raise 
money, with which to encourage his gambling inclinations. 
But his race was at length run. A large bundle of blank 
lottery tickets which was found, led to his detection, and 
plunged his parents, whose only child he was, his friends 
and all who loved him, into insupportable grief. He ab- 
sconded — but at the expiration of many weeks, and after 



48 

advertisements had been placed in various newspapers by 
his nearly heart-broken parents, informing him that his 
delinquencies had been.settled, he returned, and remained 
in the privacy of his father's house several months. But 
the spoiler had entered, the fair promise of his youth was 
destroyed, and neither his mother's tears nor his father's 
prayers could detain him from the paths of infamy and vice 
which had now become familiar to him. He went on from 
bad to worse, enlisted, deserted, and is now, or was, in the 
Havanna, whither he went from New Orleans on board a 
vessel of very suspicious character.- — Here is a promising 
youth being entirely ruined by lotteries alone." 

In most cases of delinquency in the Bank of the United 
States, whether arising in the chief institution or its 
branches, the unlawful fruits have been ascertained to be 
squandered in lottery offices. So far too as any knowledge 
has transpired relating to delinquencies in our local banks, 
the same remark will apply— the destination of the funds is 
often found to be the same shocking reservoirs of ruined 
virtue, shipwrecked fortunes, and blighted hopes ! A few 
examples will suffice.' 

The following narrative was kindly communicated by a 
gentleman, who is connected with the institution to which 
it refers. The principal facts— those of the abstraction 
and its origin— -are matters of notoriety in this community. 
We alter only to abridge. 

u The evils of lottery gambling were never, perhaps, 
more strongly exemplified, than in the case of that infatu- 
ated man, Clew, the porter of the Bank of the United 
States. This individual occupied, in the Bank a very 
confidential station, and although many small sums of mo- 
ney were occasionally missed, under circumstances very 
trying to the officers, and particularly to the Tellers, yet 
no suspicion had attached to Clew, so exemplary had been 
his general conduct. One day, the officers of the bank in 



49 

settling their daily morning balances with the city banks, 
missed two notes of a thousand dollars each. * * * In a few 
hours both the missing notes were presented by two lottery 
brokers, who upon being asked from whom they had been 
received, stated from Clew, the porter of the United States 
Bank. To each of these brokers he was then indebted for 
lottery tickets more than a thousand dollars, and when thus 
detected there were found in his possession 426 whole tick- 
ets, 462 half tickets, 1361 quarter tickets, and 78 eighths 
of tickets, in various lotteries, making in all two thousand, 
three hundred and twenty-seven chances, which, after hav- 
ing been all drawn and examined by order of the bank, 
produced less than twenty dollars! Facts afterwards dis- 
closed satisfied the officers of the bank, that this man had 
been for years led away by this worst of all species of gam- 
bling, because the most seductive and the least odious, and 
had constantly been defrauding the institution that confid- 
ed in him, of sums of money for the purpose of carrying 
on his nefarious speculations. 

" It is scarcely necessary to add, that his villanies met 
with the reward consequent upon them, — trial, conviction, 
imprisonment, — and that with blasted reputation and ruin- 
ed character, he yet lives, a lasting monument of the 
miserable effects of this pernicious system." 

The following case is likewise well authenticated : 

fi The cashier of a bank in , who had long enjoyed 

the entire confidence of his fellow-citizens, was discovered 
to be a heavy defaulter. He at length confessed that the 
cause of his ruin was the lottery, in which he had largely 
embarked. He was insolvent to the amount of fifty thou- 
sand dollars /" 

We give another instance of fraud committed in a bank- 
ing institution. It is derived from a Connecticut news- 
paper, and there is no doubt of its truth. 



50 

" As various reports are in circulation respecting some 
recent disclosures of a fraud in the Hartford Bank, we 
have obtained from an officer in the bank, the following 
particulars: — Mr. D. Hinsdale, book-keeper, has been in 
the Hartford Bank twenty-nine years ; during the last 
thirteen years, he has defrauded the bank to the amount of 
S31,020 23, overdrawing his account, for moderate sums, 
from time to time, and balancing it at the end of every six 
months, by falsifying his entries ; and by making false foot- 
ings in his trial balances of the same amount, the fraud was 
not discovered. Property valued at $9,653 67, has been 
conveyed to the bank by Mr. Hinsdale, making the loss of 
the bank 821,366 56. The larger part of the money 
taken from the bank, was, by his own account, expended 
for lottery tickets. Mr. H. was supposed to have been 
unusually fortunate, we believe, in drawing prizes."— r 
The New York Journal of Commerce, on copying the 
above, says, u We happen to know that a broker in this 
city, some years since, paid Mr. Hinsdale a prize of 
$10,000." 

THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF DRAWING 
PRIZES. 

It is a peculiar feature of lotteries, that success and mis- 
carriage alike allure their votary to ruin. It will hardly 
be credited by the ardent expectant of a prize, that its 
possession would only tend to accelerate a downfall, which, 
if it had not been for his good fortune, might have been 
delayed. The cases are numerous in which the drawing 
of a prize is the epoch of the adventurer's destruction, 
and may be considered as the knell of his earthly hopes. 

We cannot resist the temptation to quote the following 
account, given by a lottery vender of New York, as to the 
destination of prizes which were sold by him in a certain 



51 

lottery drawn during the autumn of 1831 ; and of his own 
impoverishment by purchasing in the lottery. 

" The highest prize sold by me in Class 30, was $50 



a 


a 


a 


a i 


( a 


31, " 


40 


a 


a 


a 


a t 


( a 


32, " 


12 


a 


a 


u 


a i 


i a 


11, " 


50 


a 


a 


a 


a i 


i a 


33, " 


300 


a 


a 


a 


a i 


t a 


34, " 


50 


a 


a 


a 


U ( 


i a 


35, « 


100 



" The first prize, of $50, was sold to a black man. I 
never saw him after. 

" The second, of $40, was sold to a black man. He spent 
it all in tickets, and got in my debt S2.50, which he has 
not paid. 

" The third, gl2, was sold to a neighbour of mine. He 
took the amount in tickets, and lost the whole. He never 
purchased of me after that. 

" The fourth, of $300, was sold to a journeyman baker. 
He drew a $1000 prize afterwards ; he spent the whole 
$300 prize with me, and, as I understand, he left his em- 
ployment and the city much in debt. 

" The fifth, of $50, was sold to a woman who spent the 
whole for tickets, and more too, in less than a week. 

66 The sixth and last was sold to a young gentlemen of 
my acquaintance. He bought more tickets than the prizes 
came to. He drew afterwards $1,000; I presume, in fact 
he told me, he had spent every cent of it in lottery tickets. 
I am thus particular, and I am enabled to be so, from having 
kept a book in which all my tickets were registered ; and 
I have invariably taken the names of purchasers, or a de- 
scription of their persons. The lottery brokers generally 
do so ; they are a keen set of fellows, and pretty sure not 
to let a person who may be so unfortunate as to draw a 



52 

high prize, escape their clutches. It may not be amiss 
to state my own experience. I have, within seven years, 
drawn the whole of .... $10,000 

Half of §24,000 - - - - 12,000 

Half of 5,000 - - - 2,500 

and minor prizes of $1,000 and downwards, to an immense 
amount. I have drawn at least twenty prizes of gl,000 
each, and am now indebted for lottery tickets over g7000, 
without the means of paying a mill ; and I believe my luck 
has been better than that of any other man in America. I 
have had tickets forced upon me by the venders, to the 
amount of >§>5,000 in a single lottery. As long as there 
was any chance of redeeming myself from insolvency, I 
was willing to take the risk, and so were they, believing 
in my ability to pay them." 

A person of the name of J , who was engaged in a 

respectable grocery business, drew several prizes amount- 
ing to §40,000. He quitted business, and was persuaded 
to adopt an expensive style of living. He very soon 
expended the whole sum, became intemperate, and died 
insolvent and broken hearted. 

A man who resided in , drew a prize of $30,000 

among other smaller ones. He continued his adventures, 
and eventually failed, $50,000 in debt! 

A man who was pursuing a small but successful business, 
purchased some lottery tickets, and drew $1000. Again 
he drew $10,000, and on another occasion he drew $5000. 
The public heard of all these prizes, but not of the expen- 
diture in tickets necessary to secure them. He neglected 
his business, and finally abandoned it for that of the lot- 
tery. His habits became dissipated, and he is now reduced 
to penury. 



53 

Mr. ? whose good fortune in the lottery had been 

extensively bruited as wonderful, failed a few years ago. 
He had once drawn a prize of 040,000, and others of in- 
ferior amount. The account which he had kept showed 
an aggregate of 080,000, drawn at different periods, but 
his expenditure for tickets amounted to the sum of 120,000 
dollars ! He was insolvent 70,000 dollars! 

"A prize of $15,000 was drawn by four young men. 
One was a gold and silver smith, at the time, honest and 
industrious, — he has since drawn two or three large prizes, 
and is now a drunken vagabond. Another was a grocer, 
who has since failed, and says, his last advice to his chil- 
dren, will be, "Never buy a lottery ticket." 

The other two, were also grocers, remarkable for their 
industry and economy, — but both have since died in pover- 
ty and drunkenness." 

u A respectable mechanic of , about the year 1823, 

drew a prize of $10,000. Previously he was estimated to 
be worth $6,000. Soon after drawing the prize he pur- 
chased a large estate in the city for $50,000, designing to 
sell it in house lots, and expecting to realize large profits 
therefrom. He also purchased, about the same time, a 
country seat in the vicinity of the city, for which, with 
outfits, he paid 86,000. His losses in consequence of 
these speculations were at least $20,000. — In 1832, he 
had become relieved of all embarrassments, and was ena- 
bled to pay cash for articles used in the prosecution of his 
business. About this time he drew two prizes, one of 
$5,000, the other of 82,000. Soon after which he ne- 
glected to fulfil his pecuniary engagements with the same 
promptitude as before. In the winter of 1832-3, he 
failed, and absented himself from the city, leaving his 
creditors without their dues. At the time he drew the 



54 

$10,000, three other persons were concerned with him 
equally, in a prize of $40,000 ; one of whom was worth, 
previously, from 85,000 to $10,000, and within six 
months from the drawing of the prize, he failed." 

" A young man of , (a cooper,) bought a few tick- 
ets in a lottery, and drew $10,000, for which he obtained 
$8,300. He purchased a house, and as he knew lottery 
money was "hard to hold," had the deed made in his 
wife's name. He continued to purchase tickets, soon con- 
tracted habits of intemperance, from a kind husband he 
became abusive, spent all his money, and his wife, to pre- 
vent his arrest, mortgaged the house, but was soon obliged 
to sell it, to procure means to keep him out of prison. He 
is now a confirmed drunkard, and his family are in desti- 
tute circumstances." 

u A young man, a son of a wealthy merchant, was one 
of four who drew $10,000. This success caused him to 
purchase many tickets. He became involved ; his natu- 
rally amiable disposition, from repeated disappointment, 
was supplanted by excitability and chagrin ; he became 
intemperate and addicted to gaming in various ways, and 
soon after left the country, deeply in debt. He went to 
the West Indies, and there continued his habits of gaming 
and dissipation, and was finally obliged to leave in the 
night, for fear of assassination. He then came back to the 
United States, and immediately shipped as a common sai- 
lor round Cape Horn. — The other three persons who 
shared the S 10,000 with him, soon after failed, as was 
supposed, from venturing largely in lotteries." 

"Another young man, (a clerk,) drew $3,000. He 
commenced business, but continued to purchase tickets 
until he lost all the property he possessed, (being more 



55 

than he drew in the lottery,) and finally failed. He is now- 
very poor, and obliged to labor hard for a subsistence. But 
sad experience has not taught him the folly of relying upon 
chance; the deceitful promises of the lottery still have 
their influence over his visionary and credulous mind, and 
he declares he would spend still more for tickets if he 
could afford it." 

" Another person, also of , who kept a store, and 

devoted his whole time to his business, and scarcely left 
his store during the week, unfortunately drew a prize of 
$5,000. He still continued to pay strict attention to his 
business, and was no less temperate in his habits. But his 
success in the lottery proved his ruin. From that time he 
expended hundreds of dollars in each lottery that was pre- 
sented to him, until he had exhausted all he had made by 
lotteries, all he had accumulated by a long course of suc- 
cessful industry, and all he could command by his credit. 
The result was certain. He failed ; and, although he con- 
tinued his habit of industry, became very poor. He pro- 
bably sunk $12,000 or $15,000 in this most ruinous of all 
systems of gaming, over and above the prize money he 
received." 

" An extensive dealer in malt liquors drew four or five 
years ago a prize of $10,000. He was previously sup- 
posed to be worth from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, 
and was highly esteemed for his industry and perseverance 
in business. He rarely purchased a ticket previously to 
his drawing the prize — afterwards his adventures became 
very extensive, and in about a year he failed, and was able 
to pay only his preferred creditors." 

" A young man, who formerly was employed as a clerk 
in the Post Office at — , drew a prize of $8,000. Dis- 



56 

sipated habits, and gaming of various kinds, caused his 
dismission by the Post-Master, and subsequently his ruin. " 

"A person residing in , drew $25,000. He was 

a watch-maker — which business he immediately closed, 
and had deposited in the bank at the same time over 
$19,000 in money. His first step was to build a house at 
an expense of gl 0,000. He then opened a store with an 
extensive assortment of goods, and purchased a brig for 
whaling. — In three years he failed, and was deficient 
$18,000 — having squandered in this short period the sum 
of g37,000." 

An editor of a newspaper relates the following circum- 
stance, which is a striking exemplification of the mutabili- 
ty of riches obtained by lotteries : — " A man," says he, 
" who, a few years ago, was blessed with about $20,000 lot- 
tery money, yesterday applied to us for ninepence to pay 
for a night's lodging." 

The Philadelphia Saturday Bulletin for May 28, 1830, 
relates the following melancholy occurrence : — " We wit- 
nessed a strange sight on Thursday evening, within a few 
doors of our office ; a young man had drawn a large prize 
in one of the lotteries, and had just received the proceeds, 
amounting to more than $8,000. It drove him crazy on the 
spot. No sooner had he received the money than his senses 
forsook him, and being an utter stranger in the city, he 
roamed through the streets like a madman, until going into 
a jeweller's shop near Fourth street, he purchased a dag- 
ger, for which he offered 100 — a crowd had followed him 
to the shop door, attracted by the singular spectacle, and 
then he came out swearing he would kill the first man he 
met — a threat which his distorted senses might certainly 
have compelled him to execute." 



57 

u Four or five years ago a gentleman, then a commission 

merchant in P , drew the whole of a $50,000 prize in 

one of the Southern lotteries. The prize was subject to 
a deduction of 15 per cent, payable in 60 days from the 
time of drawing ; he also made a further discount of $500 
for prompt pay, and actually received $42,000 in cash and 
lottery tickets, the amount of the latter I never heard. He 
immediately purchased a house, barouche, a span of horses, 
etcetera, and invested the residue of his funds in ships, 
brigs, schooners, wild lands, and probably more lottery 
tickets. In less than eighteen months the poor man died, 
and his estate was found insolvent several thousands of 
dollars. 

"Not long after the death of the gentleman before al- 
luded to, there was another disturbance among the lottery 
gamblers. A man, who had for years been engaged in the 
ship-chandlery business and who was generally supposed 
to be u above board," was found, upon an investigation of 
his affairs, to be indebted for borrowed money about 
$1200, all of which he borrowed of his neighbours in sums 
of from 50 to g300. He owed glOOO for his stock in 
trade, and two thousand dollars for lottery tickets ; and 
to pay these debts of more than S4000, all he had, includ- 
ing his stock in his store and furniture in his house, was 
only about $400. He subsequently acknowledged that he 
had spent more than £5000 in two years for lottery tick- 
ets." 

u A most signal instance of personal ruin occasioned by 

dealers in lotteries, occurred in the short^career of , 

who died several years ago. He was a very promising 
youth, and, after completing his education, commenced 
the study of the law, for the practice of which he soon 
qualified himself, and appeared at the bar under very 
auspicious circumstances. — He soon had a very respecta- 



58 

ble practice^ and having about this time married a very 
fine woman, the daughter of a man of high standing and 

handsome fortune, Mr. 's prospects were considered 

very promising. Had he continued the sober, studious, 
industrious man he then was, he would, no doubt, have 
risen to great respectability, influence, and independence. 
He was, however, so unfortunate as to draw a prize of one 
hundred thousand dollars — immediately after which he 
launched forth into a style of extravagant living, almost 
unexampled, gave up his business, or rather lost it by in- 
attention, and by living freely soon became what might be 
considered intemperate — in eating perhaps as well as 
drinking. — He commenced entertaining company upon a 
scale, which, with the mode of living he had adopted, soon 
exhausted his estate and destroyed his constitution. He 
died at about the age of thirty years, a bankrupt. — His 
ruin may be fairly charged to this most iniquitous system 
of licensed gambling." 

u A young man by the name of , who came from 

the , taught school in the country with good suc- 
cess, and became highly respectable. — By dealing in lot- 
teries he unfortunately drew a prize of twenty thousand 
dollars. This completely turned his head. He removed 

to , opened a lottery office, and in two years became 

a bankrupt I" 

"There have been instances of utter ruin from indulg- 
ing in the temptation which lotteries hold out, even where 
they have been sometimes fortunate. A gentleman drew 
a prize of twenty-eight thousand dollars, and in ten 
years sunk all he possessed before, as well as the amount 
above stated. He died a drunkard and left his family de- 
pendant upon the charity of others." 

" A striking instance occurred in . A man who 



59 

had for more than twenty years been receiving from an 
office three thousand dollars per annum, and had made 
way with it all in the purchase of tickets, drew a prize of 
ten thousand dollars. He made many judicious plans as 
to the way of investing this sum, so as to receive a compe- 
tence for his family, and talked exceedingly well of having 
learned much from experience, &c. but he laid out much 
in tickets, and in less than two years all had melted 
away. * * * The consequences to those who draw prizes, 
are perhaps as injurious as to those who draw blanks." 

In reply to the question, what consequences have result- 
ed from the lottery in Connecticut? the answer was — "in 
many instances distress and ruin." The correspondent 
continues : " I know several instances in which men of 
respectable standing in the community and of fair proper- 
ty, have been induced to deal in lottery tickets until they 
and their families were ruined. But I do not feel myself 
at liberty to enter into particulars." The same delicacy 
must induce the suppression of a melancholy case which 
was confidentially communicated by a near relative of the 
ill-fated victim residing in that state. 

INTEMPERANCE AND SUICIDE. 

Either intemperance or suicide would seem naturally to 
follow from the course of life which is incident to all spe- 
cies of gambling, and especially to that by means of the 
lottery. For what is more likely to be resorted to as a cure 
for the tedium of idleness or the agony of successive losses, 
than the excitement or insensibility to be found in the 
glass? And when that idleness at last terminates in 
despondency or these losses in despair, where can the in- 
fatuated and unhappy victim find refuge but in the em- 
braces of death? His religion and courage have been 
dissipated with his money ; being " afraid to live, he dares 



60 

to die/' and his seared conscience feels no compunctious 
pang'at the crime of self-destruction. Having lost all his 
chances here, he madly rushes to the certainty of a final 
destiny. But we hasten to give at least an example of each, 
although several instances of intemperance have been alrea- 
dy related. 

" A Mr. G — ? of Franklin county, Massachusetts, drew 
about ten years since, a prize of $20,000 in a lottery. 
He was a trader of a respectable family, but not possessed 
of much money. After he drew the prize he neglected his 
business, became dissipated and intemperate in his habits, 
and within two years past, he has been declared by the 
selectmen of the town in which he resided, a vagabond, 
and a guardian has been appointed to take charge of his 
remaining property for the benefit of his wife and family. 
To avoid the alms-house he fled to New York, taking with 
him two of his children. During the last summer his 
children, that he took away with him, were found by one 
of his former acquaintances, in the streets of New York, 
in a deplorable state of misery, being nearly starved and 
almost naked — and were taken by him to his own house, 
where they remained till an opportunity offered to convey 
them to their mother and friends in Massachusetts." 

u A respectable farmer residing in the interior of the 
state of Massachusetts, drew several years ago a prize of 
gl 0,000. His first expenditures embraced many im- 
provements upon his farm, and the building of a large 
house. But the tavern soon overcame his attachments to 
his family — his pecuniary affairs were neglected — he be- 
came a bankrupt, a drunkard, and to end his miserable 
existence, was his own murderer." 

" A young man, a native of E , a few years ago, 

was so unfortunate as to draw a prize of S1000 in a lottery. 
Previously he had established a good character for indus- 



61 

try, prudence and moral conduct — at the time he was a 
machinist in a large manufacturing establishment. His 
success so infatuated the people in that vicinity, that du- 
ring the six subsequent days, one lottery broker in the 
village where he then resided, took $3000 for tickets. 
The effect on him personally was still worse. On draw- 
ing the prize he changed his business, and opened a gro- 
cery store. With his business he changed his habits — 
and about two years afterwards, died a drunkard, by the 
side of his own rum cask, leaving a wife to deplore his 
ruin and death. In the village where the manufactory 
was situated, two other young men, his associates, have 
subsequently ruined themselves by the same species of 
gaming. One of them soon after died of intemperance, 
and the other is now a confirmed drunkard." 

The following reference to a remarkable case of suicide, 
is extracted from a newspaper printed in New York, for 
February, 1831. 

" The case of suicide reported in the city of New 
York, during the last week, is one which ought to awaken 
alarm in the mind of every one. It is strange that the in- 
dividual should have about his lifeless corpse the evidence 
that rum, lottery-gaming, and infidelity, were the trio of 
ruffians who drove him to this deed of infamy — this awful 
crime of self-murder. His card of address directed to 
a grog-shop as his boarding house — in his pocket were 
three lottery tickets, portending blanks, as the fruits of his 
gaming — and about his person was found a single leaf of 
' Seneca's Morals,' in which the crime of self-murder finds 
an apology, and even justification." 

We adopt from the Boston Courier of February, 1833, 
the following narrative. The painful event referred to 



62 

excited an unparalleled sensation in Boston where it oc- 
curred. 

" The recent self- destruction of Mr. David H. Ackers, 
in this city, demands a more emphatic public notice than 
it has yet received. The feelings of the community were 
perhaps never more painfully, more indignantly excited, 
than they have been by this afflicting event. 

" Mr. Ackers, the misguided man, whose unhappy 
fate has been so generally deplored, had been, for ten 
years, the chief clerk in one of the first importing houses 
in the city ; and to the hour of his death he enjoyed the 
unbounded confidence of his employers." 

" His character for integrity and purity was unsullied. 
Modest and amiable in his manners, temperate and do- 
mestic in his habits, he was endeared to all who knew him, 
as one without a vice. 

" When the distressing tidings were first spread abroad, 
that he had been found dead, not the most distant suspi- 
cion was entertained that he had ended — that he could 
have ended his quiet existence by his own act. The ru- 
mour which momentarily prevailed, that he had been rob- 
bed and murdered, was received, it is true, with horror, 
but with implicit confidence 5 nor was it until the fatal 
evidence of his rashness was found in his own hurried 
hand-writing, that they who had known, and loved, and 
trusted him so long, were made to feel that he had cruelly 
deceived them ; and that in the distraction of remorse he 
had atoned for one crime by committing another — the 
darkest crime of all. 

u Ackers was the victim of a fraternity, who, to the 
disgrace of our city, are permitted to carry on their un- 
lawful labours in every street and alley, in bold defiance 
of the penalties they deserve. The outrageous extent to 
which he was duped will hardly be credited. In the 
short space of between seven and eight months, he em- 



63 

bezzled the enormous sum of 818,000, every cent of which 
was lost on lottery tickets, 

u I have no desire to excite unmerited ill-will against 
any member of the community ; it is not my wish to draw 
down undeserved odium upon any particular mode, where- 
by men gain their livelihood ; but of a traffic which even 
permits such a monstrous fraud as I have mentioned, I 
shall speak in no measured terms — and I have mistaken 
the temper of my fellow citizens, if they are not prepared 
to sustain me in saying, that it must be broken up. They 
who follow it are daily and hourly violating the law of the 
land, and must be watched and detected and punished. 

" I have been permitted to copy the dying declaration 
of poor Ackers, which was found in his desk after his 
death. — It was probably written a few moments only be- 
fore he committed the awful act to which he was hurried 
by the goadings of remorse. It is a simple picture of hu- 
man woe. In its untutored language we see to what a depth 
of wretchedness one false step reduced a man upon whose 
whole life before not a blot had rested. 

COPY. 

" I have for the last seven months gone fast down the 
broad road to destruction. 

" There was a time, and that two but a few months 
since, that I was happy, because I was free from debt and 
care. 

" The time I note my downfall, or deviation from the 
path of rectitude, was about the middle of June last, when 
I took a share in a company, of lottery tickets, whereby I 
was successful in obtaining a share of one half the capital 
prize ; since which I have gone for myself, and that too, 
not on a very small scale, as you can judge from the amount 
now due J. R. & Co., every dollar of which has been spent 
in that way. 



64 

" I have lived or dragged out a miserable existence for 
two or three months past. Sleepless nights and a guilty 
conscience have led me on to the fatal act. 

"Only the hope of making Messrs. J. R. & Co. good 
for the defalcation, has postponed it till the present time ; 
a smaller amount I did hope, would be the result, for the 
worse luck I had the more I bought. 

" Since I have reflected on my rashness, I cannot look 
back and see how it is possible I could have conducted in 
this way. When the situation I occupied, and the confi- 
dence reposed in me, and the long time I have been en- 
gaged, and the reward for my poor services by , that 

all should be lost in one moment — but the loss is too much 
for me to bear. 

" Oh that seven or eight months past of my existence 
could be blotted out — but no, I must go — and ere this 
paper is read, my spirit is gone to my Maker, to give an 
account of my misdeeds here, and receive the dreadful 
sentence for self-destruction and abused confidence. 
[Two or three lines are here erased.] 

" Relations and friends I have, from whom 1 do not 
wish to part under such circumstances, but necessity 

" Oh, wretch ! lotteries have been thy ruin. 

u I cannot add more." 

These cases are tedious, but they cannot be uninterest- 
ing to any one who regards the welfare or morals of the 
community, as matters of moment. Would licensed gam- 
bling tables be introductive of so much distress, such va- 
riety and blackness of crime ? In the first place the lottery 
is more extensively prejudicial than other kinds of gam- 
bling, by holding out enticements which effect more or less 
every class in society. It is accommodated to the poor as 
well as to the rich, to the concealed speculator no less than 
the avowed libertine. The subdivision of chances is so 



65 

minute as even to include, among the adventurers, the 
apprentice to a trade, the indented girl, and the chimney- 
sweep. But it does not stop here ; with its own undis- 
tinguishing spirit, it sacrifices older victims, and ascends 
into higher walks. It penetrates into situations which 
would prove impervious to the contaminating influences of 
ordinary gambling. While in common games, the perso- 
nal superintendence which is necessary, must expose the 
infamy of participation, the odium of holding tickets may- 
be prevented by committing to another the charge of the 
purchase. It is thus, that persons pretending to respecta- 
bility, have been known to speculate in lotteries without 
incurring the disgrace which, in most communities, is in- 
cident to the practice of gambling. 

The risks are greater in the lottery than in other gaming. 
The chance of the latter may be as one to one, or greater, 
at the discretion of the player, but the hazards of the former 
are frequently in the proportion of one to thousands. In 
the one, loss of fortune may ensue in a single night ; but 
in the other, the excitements of hope and the agony of 
disappointment may alternate in such rapid succession, 
that the unhappy adventurer may have a protracted strug- 
gle with the fickleness of chance before he may know the 
result of the contest. In the meantime he is rendered a 
useless, not to say pernicious member of society, — his 
principles are contaminated by familiar association with 
infamy and guilt, and his habits debauched by indulging 
in the excesses to which he has been driven. The life of 
a regular gamester may admit of useful occupation in the 
intervals of play. But the adventurer in the lottery, 
broods by day and night over his tickets — his imagination 
is gloated with the grand idea of possessing the capital 
prize — and his mind is held in that state of constant ex- 
citement, which admits of nothing to divert it from the 
one great and absorbing object of its contemplation. Or- 



66 

dinary gambling may ruin the victim of its infatuation at 
once/ and drive him to suicide, or he may borrow from 
his successful companion, beyond the possibility of repay- 
ment, in the hope of retrieving his broken fortunes. The 
speculator in the lottery, on the other hand, is not van- 
quished at a blow, but in the caprices or accidents of the 
wheel, though often the loser, he is sometimes the gainer — 
new stimulus is thus imparted to his cupidity — he is urged 
on to new ventures — great good fortune only whets his 
appetite for greater — and continued ill luck only nourishes 
the hope of its speedy termination. He soon finds that he 
is incapable of a higher effort than discussing the merits of 
a scheme, or lounging upon the counter of a lottery office, 
so that that which was resorted to as promising a great 
blessing, has become the bane of his happiness and the so- 
lemn business of his life. When his means are exhausted, 
and his friends lose their confidence, he cannot gratify his 
passion for the game, or his pruriency for its successes, 
by appealing, like the regular gamester, to the fortunate 
winner for a new supply. Driven, as well by the despe- 
rate necessity of ministering to his excitement, as by de- 
praved principles and reckless despair, he is ready for the 
perpetration of any enormity. Which then has the pre- 
ponderance of evil as an engine of state? If the risks be 
greater by which the consequent prospect of loss must be 
commensurately increased — if it be more likely to lead 
to incurable idleness — if its inevitable and certain ten- 
dency is to intemperance, to perfidy, to fraud, and to 
crime — and if its pernicious influence be more widely dif- 
fused, we can be at no loss to which to attribute the loath- 
some superiority. — But placing the lottery upon the same 
level with other gambling — placing it upon the footing of 
a great moral, and, in our country especially, a great po- 
litical evil, may we ask whether its continuance by law 
should be permitted, under a form of government which 



67 

depends for its existence and conservation upon the high 
minded' purity of its members? Whether that which is 
so directly at war with the whole policy of this country, 
whose every interest consists in making wealth the fruit 
of intelligent industry and presenting every incentive to 
useful and honourable exertion, should be cherished and 
nurtured by the genial sunshine of protective legislation ? 

But not only is the lottery injurious in the abstract, as 
contributing to great pecuniary distress and moral wrong, 
but the system as conducted in Pennsylvania, and no doubt 
from the existence of similar causes elsewhere, superin- 
duces additional evil. Every means seems to be employed, 
every incitement resorted to by the guardians of the lotte- 
ry, to render it as extensively prejudicial and as radically 
hurtful as possible. Let us take a brief view of its admin- 
istration in Pennsylvania, since the remarks which apply 
to it here, may, with very few exceptions, be made in 
relation to other parts of the Union in which the lottery 
prevails. 

There is in Pennsylvania but one lottery which has even 
the semblance of law, and that will terminate by express 
enactment with the present year.* This lottery, which was 
granted to the Union Canal in 1811, has existed under dif- 
ferent names and with various modifications since the year 
1795. Though an act of assembly passed three years 
before, prohibited the sale of foreign lottery tickets under 
a severe pecuniary penalty, and the act of 1811 incorpo- 
rating the Union Canal, greatly increased the forfeiture, 
yet the law, ever since its enactment, has been constantly 
infringed with scarcely an attempt at concealment. 

The continual augmentation of lottery offices in Phila- 
delphia, illustrates the progressive character of the evil. 
In 1809 three offices only are recollected to have existed 

* Vide Note 4, Appendix. 



68 



throughout the whole city ; in 1827 the number was com- 
puted at sixty ; in 1831 they were ascertained to amount 
to one hundred and seventy-seven ; and now, in the year 
1833, the number may be estimated at above two hundred. 
In these offices were vended, during the last year, tickets 
in four hundred and twenty schemes, whose prizes amount 
to 53,136,930 dollars, as may be seen by the subjoined 
tabular statement. 



States authorizing Lotteries. 

New York, 

Virginia, - ..... 

Connecticut, ..... 

Rhode Island, ..... 

Delaware & North Carolina, (joint grants,) 

Maryland, ..... 

Delaware, - -•'..- - 

* Aggregate for 1 1 months, - 

Add one-eleventh, (to complete the year,) 

Aggregate for one year, .... 
If to this be added the amount of the Union 

Canal Lotteries drawn within the same 

period, 

Grand Total, - - - 



Amount of Prizes. 


No. of Schemes. 


$13,188,818 
10,010,153 
7,638,201 
7,184,486 
3,174,324 
2,028,162 
614,408 


73 
65 
81 
62 
34 
17 
29 


$43,838,552 
3,985,322 


361 
33 


$47,823,874 
5,313,056 


394 

26 


$53,136,930 


420 



Of these four hundred «nd twenty schemes, whose tick- 
ets have been constantly for sale in Philadelphia during 
and since the year 1832, all are expressly prohibited by 
law, except the twenty-six issued by the Union Canal. 
Thus the people of Pennsylvania have been made to con- 
tribute to the internal improvements of New York, Vir- 
ginia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, 
Maryland, and Delaware, as well as to pay a large sum 
to a Company of their own state, whose grant has ex- 
pired. Nor are the other states in which there are large 
cities, exempt from similar burthens — each is taxed for the 



* Taken from an accurate list of schemes up to December 1, 1832. 



69 

local convenience of the others, in proportion to the facili- 
ties presented for imposition. But Pennsylvania, by being 
the great mart for nearly all the lotteries in the United 
States, has reason for more emphatic complaint. In defi- 
ance of all her legislative prohibitions of foreign lotteries, 
her citizens are annually subsidized to an immense amount ; 
perhaps for a church in Rhode Island, or a rail road through 
the Dismal Swamp, or for other improvements in which 
she has as remote a prospect of interest or advantage. 

The amount of purchases in the United States, we can- 
not pretend to assert, but the pecuniary loss per week to 
the people of Philadelphia may be estimated at thirty thou- 
sand dollars. This sum is nearly lost to the people, for 
the only pretended benefit accruing to the cause of physi- 
cal improvement is the inconsiderable sum of thirty thou- 
sand dollars per annum, supposed to be applied to the pur- 
poses of internal navigation. It follows that all the pecu- 
niary distress — the idleness and crime superinduced — are 
inflicted upon the citizens of Pennsylvania, without the 
hope of benefit or the expectation of return. 

The drawings in Philadelphia are frequent, and it is 
believed about every fortnight throughout the year. Wit- 
ness the assemblages at the arcade on these occasions. 
Hundreds of wretched persons are collected, whose intense 
anxiety is read in their flushed and distorted countenances. 
Listen to the loud imprecations and blasphemy mingled 
with the scarcely audible whisper of profane, delirious, 
and intoxicating joy, upon the announcement of a prize ! 
Follow the motley throng upon dispersion, and witness the 
agonizing disappointment and despair which ninety-nine 
out of a hundred exhibit! Yet to the relief of these, hope 
soon comes in the chances of to-morrow. They again at- 
tend, and with a beating pulse and palpitating heart, hear — 
another disappointment in another blank/ Are not such 



70 

spectacles and scenes a disgrace to, and reflection upon 
humanity? 

In the two hundred lottery offices in Philadelphia, it is 
estimated that there may be five or six hundred persons 
employed to attend to the business of the respective offices. 
These persons subsist and grow rich by preying upon their 
deluded fellow-citizens. Boys of the tenderest age are 
initiated into all the mysteries of the craft, which are those 
of habitual falsehood and schemes of rapine. The arts that 
are practised to induce a purchase, and the cheats devised 
for robbing the wretched victim of his prize when he hap- 
pens to draw one, are too notorious to need elucidation by 
example. Nevertheless, a remarkable instance of the lat- 
ter shall be recorded. A person residing in or near Ger- 
mantown held a ticket which drew the capital prize. Be- 
fore the fact was known to the holder, three men rode out 
from the city, and so frightened the man by representing 
to him that his ticket was forged, that he was induced to 
relinquish it. The men returned to the city, obtained the 
prize, and divided it amongst them. The fraud was sub- 
sequently detected, and the culprits convicted and punish- 
ed. — It would be endless to notice all the species of petty 
frauds which are daily committed; such as disposing of 
five and seven quarters of tickets, selling and insuring 
tickets which have long since been drawn, and the forgery 
of tickets and prizes. We shall here give an instance of 
the last. A young man by the name of Ebenezer Wright, 
was brought before the Mayor some time ago, charged with 
presenting at a lottery office, to be cashed, a ticket whose 
number was entitled to the prize. The report of the case 
is contained in a newspaper, and concludes thus: — 
" Wright has been dealing largely in lottery tickets for a 
number of years past, by which he has sunk a considerable 
sum of money, notwithstanding on one occasion he drew a 
prize of 1500 dollars. He remarked to the officer who 



71 

arrested him, that lotteries had cheated him out of a clever 
fortune, and he thought retaliation no more than justice." 

Tickets are so subdivided into minute part*, that 12| 
cents is sufficient to purchase a chance. Thus a lure is 
held out to youth of both sexes and of all conditions, and 
every motive is presented for stealing the trivial sum which 
gives an opportunity for the capital prize. The venders, 
as if to secure customers at any hazard, have standing 
current accounts with girls in kitchens, apprentices to 
trades, and young clerks in stores, who, from month to 
month, are debited with tickets, and credited with prizes. 

These unprotected beings are importuned in the streets 
by some emissary of a lottery office, and if persuasion be 
insufficient to induce a purchase, the tickets are sometimes 
thrust upon them. Hand-bills of the most insidious and 
seductive character find their way into stores, taverns and 
kitchens. Placards, pictures and signs, powerfully ap- 
pealing to the imaginations of the simple, are exposed to 
public view. Every art which experience has suggested 
and ingenuity can devise, is applied to for the purpose of 
deceiving the credulous and alluring the unwary. A prize 
is always promised upon the purchase of a package. The 
excited expectant after spending his last farthing with the 
dazzling magnificence of thousands before his eyes, draws 
indeed a prize which — 

Keeps the promise to the ear. 
But breaks it to the hope, 

in the loss of more than half his venture. The result to 
the unhappy victim at last is, the privation of all he pos- 
sessed, and insolvency to a frightful amount, if indeed it be 
not attended with other consequences still more fearful and 
calamitous.* 

* Vide Note 5. Appendix. 



72 

From such a melancholy exhibition of the abuses of lot- 
teries, and the number of individuals sustained and enriched 
by them, the inference is unavoidable that the number of 
adventurers must be proportionably great. There is no 
means of ascertaining with any desirable precision, what 
number of people buy lottery tickets. But it is certain, 
and may be relied upon as an incontestable fact, that hun- 
dreds of persons in Philadelphia depend upon their sue- 
cess in the lottery for their subsistence, and pursue no 
other means of livelihood! Can it be believed, that in a 
city like Philadelphia, there can exist so much crime, dis- 
sipation, and idleness? In a city where honest and useful 
exertion is so well repaid, where benevolence is so actively 
employed to promote virtue by the establishment of libra- 
ries and schools — to prevent vice by the institution of a 
Refuge for young delinquents — and to arrest its career by 
presenting opportunities of reform in separate imprison- 
ment? It is nevertheless, true, that hundreds pursue no 
other occupation than inspect schemes, purchase tickets, 
and attend to the drawings, with the other venial devices 
for cozenage and fraud which are its necessary concomi- 
tants! If it be the duty of government to encourage idle- 
ness, that duty may be accomplished through the instru- 
mentality of the lottery. If the objects of laws be to in- 
troduce domestic unhappiness and every diversity of cri- 
minal propensity, it is apparent that the lottery will well 
achieve those objects. 

Upon what principle can enlightened legislation, having 
other objects and duties, permit an instrument of this sort 
to continue ? Is it for the value of the money raised, or is 
it because the losses incident to lottery speculations may 
be considered in the light of voluntary taxation? Its de- 
luded victim does not regard it as a tax, but as the road to 
sudden wealth, dispensing with the necessity of labour. If 

wed as taxation, it is unjust because it is unequal, and 



73 

comes chiefly from the pockets of the poorest of the peo- 
ple. May not money be raised by a mode which is equal 
in its operation, which takes from the rich man in pro- 
portion to his property, and which, not confined to the 
necessitous, will not dry up the means of future support, 
and cut off the possibility of future contribution? If phy- 
sical improvement be its object, let us not forget what more 
than countervails the benefit — the moral deterioration of 
the citizen. If revenue be its object, let us not forget that 
larger expenditures will be requisite for the maintenance of 
paupers and criminals, and for the construction of new alms- 
houses and new penitentiaries. In fine, there is no mode of 
raising money which is so unequal and oppressive — no spe- 
cies of adventure in which the chances are so many against 
the adventurer — none in which the infatuation attending it 
so powerful and engrossing — none which inflicts so much 
distress — and none which produces more general and atro- 
cious criminality. The Committee of the House of Com- 
mons, near to the close of their report, thus express their 
opinion of the lottery as a measure of finance. It is espe- 
cially true as applied to this country. — " Your Committee 
are conscious that they are far from having exhausted all 
the grounds which might be urged, that the lottery ought 
not to be resorted to as a financial resource. The reason- 
ing upon them appears to your committee to apply with 
peculiar force, to the situation, the habits, and all the cir- 
cumstances of a great manufacturing and commercial 
nation, in which it must be dangerous, in the highest 
degree, to diffuse a spirit of speculation, whereby the mind 
is misled from those habits of continued industry which 
insure the acquisition of comfort and independence, to delu- 
sive dreams of sudden and enormous wealth, which most 
generally end in abject poverty and complete misery." 

The great question remains, what will have the effect of 
extirpating so prodigious an evil ? Experience has proved, 



74 

both in England and America, that no regulations can pal- 
liate its mischiefs, and no prohibitions, though armed with 
penalties, are adequate to give to it a prescribed restric- 
tion. If the act of 1805, passed by the Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania, for preventing insurances by forfeitures be coolly 
contemned — if the acts of 1792 and 1811, likewise annex- 
ing pecuniary penalties to the sale of foreign tickets be 
inadequate to their purpose, what confidence is to be 
reposed in fines and forfeitures? Can its destruction be 
otherwise effected than by imposing imprisonment as for a 
criminal offence? Should not that which destroys the 
peace of families and is the origin of every criminal excess, 
be itself visited by criminal punishment? Nothing less 
than the severest inflictions of the law and the activity of 
the public can secure from infraction.* 

But legislation, however well matured, is after all but 
the expressed opinion of the hour ; for if it be competent 
for one legislature to annul a system in vogue, the next is 
equally able to restore it. Public sentiment may be stifled 
on a sudden exigency, or public feeling be blunted by the 
prevalence of kindred vices. How then shall we ensure to 
future generations an exemption from this moral scourge? 
New York has set an example worthy of her commanding 
influence and eminent rank in the confederacy, in forever 
extinguishing the power to grant a lottery by means of her 
revised constitution. But as constitutional restriction in 
every state must be unavoidably delayed, it will devolve 
upon good citizens to protect, by their vigilance and zeal, 
the rights of morality from insult, and existing laws from 
violation. We commend the subject to the anxious and 
deliberate attention of the philanthropist and patriot, as 
incalculably momentous to the present well being of so- 
ciety, and to the future prospects of the country, 

* Vide Note 6. Appendix, 



75 



THE LOTTERY SYSTEM, 



AS IT EXISTS IN OTHER STATES BESIDES PENNSYLVANIA* 

We subjoin such scanty information as we have been 
able to collect, of the lottery system as it prevails in the 
other states, besides Pennsylvania. 

In New York the lottery system has prevailed to an 
alarming extent. During the year 1830, schemes were 
drawn, in the city of New York alone, to the overwhelm- 
ing amount of nine millions two hundred and seventy 
thousand dollars. The present year, however, will wit- 
ness its termination in that great commonwealth, by virtue 
of an act passed in pursuance of the spirit which dictated 
a salutary provision in her revised constitution. That con- 
stitution, in the spirit of enlightened and genuine philan- 
thropy, has disabled the legislature from ever making the 
grant of a lottery. 

Through the statute-book of Virginia there are scattered 
forty or fifty acts of assembly, authorising lotteries for va- 
rious objects of a local nature, connected for the most part 
with the cause of improvement. At the last session alone, 
no less than twelve new ones were enacted. Of this fright- 
ful number, it is consolatory to hope from the diminutive 
sums mentioned in the grants, that only three or four will 
be rendered injurious by being carried into execution. An 
act of 1825 prohibited the sale of foreign tickets, but as 
it could not be executed, licenses were substituted. 

These licenses discriminate between the selling of fo- 
reign tickets and of those which are domestic, by imposing 



76 

a fine of $500 for the former privilege, and 860 for the 
latter. The following list of licenses issued from the be- 
ginning of last year to the middle of July, 1833, may be 
relied upon as accurate. 

The returns made to the First Auditor's Office, from each county in the state of 
Virginia, show that the following lottery licenses have been issued for the year 
1832, viz :— 

Augusta county, 1 license at $1000 

Monroe county, 1 " 45 33 

Petersburg, 1 " 500 00 

Richmond city, 5 " - ,. . . . - 2147 75 

Norfolk borough, 3 " 1162 50 

Rockingham county, 2" 3000 

$3895 58 



Returns of lottery licenses, for the present year, are not complete — But the follow- 
ing have already been returned, (July 16, 1833,) viz: — 



Richmond city, 


5 licenses at $500 
3 " 60 

1 " - 
3 " - 


$2500 

180 




) 


$2680 00 

60 00 

327 33 


Linchburg, 
Fredericksburg, 






$3067 33 



It is not a little remarkable that the Virginia legislature, 
at its last session, should authorise ' twelve new lotteries to 
be be drawn,' while an act to suppress them altogether 
was substantially passed by both hou es ! The bill for their 
suppression had received the sanction of the delegates and 
was returned with an unimportant amendment from the 
senate, which, as it was the last day of the session, the 
former had not time to consider. It remains for us to hope 
that it will be revived and concurred in with unanimity. 

In Ohio, Vermont, Maine, and Michigan, the lottery sys- 
tem is destroyed ; and in Louisiana, where twenty grants 
have been authorised since the year 1810, its existence is 



77 

lo terminate on the first day of the coming year. New 
Hampshire passed a Jaw in 1791, for the suppression of 
the evil, the penalty of which was altered in 1807, and 
this again by an act of 1827, which is still in operation. 
This statute makes it penal to dispose of any property by 
means of a lottery or to sell foreign lottery tickets. There 
is no grant in existence, but until recently foreign tickets 
were sold in almost every bookseller's shop in the state in 
open defiance of the law. 

A correspondent gives the following account of the ex- 
tent to which these illicit sales had been carried: — " The 
sale of tickets issued in other states is prohibited by a law 
passed July 7th, 1827, imposing a penalty for selling, 
keeping for sale, or otherwise disposing of tickets, of a 
sum not exceeding Si 00, nor less than $25. The same 
law contains a section imposing a fine for printing or pub- 
lishing any account of a lottery, or any advertisement of 
tickets, of the same description. Notwithstanding this law, 
tickets have been sold in this state to a considerable amount 
every year, until the present ; when on account of the great 
disgust against the whole lottery system among the greater 
part of the community, their sale has nearly, if not entirely, 
ceased. The purchase of tickets in this state, in years past, 
seemed to pervade every class and condition of the commu- 
nity — the high and the low, the rich and the poor, <:he mer- 
chant and mechanic, the lawyer and his client, th^ physician 
and his patient, the minister of the gospeL (i* a few cases,) 
and the members of the church, have all a* different times 
been infected with the lottery mania, pad not a few have 
been attracted to the fortunate Jotter/ oflice for what they 
fondly hoped would bring them ^ase and affluence. I 
would not be understood as say/ng that many of each of 
the foregoing descriptions of persons have been in the 
habit of purchasing tickets, out persons of each profession 
named, have patronized the wheel of chance or fortune, 



78 

and together in. the aggregate constitute a very considera- 
ble number." 

In North Carolina the system is virtually abandoned by 
the suspension of schemes and the absence of lottery offices 
for the sale of tickets ; although the grant for the Neuse 
River, is said still to be in being. 

In Massachusetts, the clandestine sale of lottery tickets 
which had been extensively carried on in Boston, was ar- 
rested at the last session of the legislature, with an energy 
and unanimity of sentiment highly gratifying. 

The legislature of New Jersey, for the last twelve or fifteen 
years, has uniformly resisted the most urgent applications 
for grants of lotteries, but in defiance of the penalties an- 
nexed to selling foreign tickets, they are exposed in every 
part of the state. We are informed , upon the best authority, 
that extraordinary arts are employed to induce their pur- 
chase. Newspaper publications, personal solicitations and 
importunities, handbills thrown in at almost every door, and 
the exposure of artful and gaudy signs to public view, are 
among the means resorted to. It is to be hoped that this vio- 
lation of their laws will be stopped, both from considerations 
relati&g to their own citizens, as well as to those of Phila- 
delphia. If the practice be connived at by the authorities 
of Nev Jersey, she may expect upon the termination of 
lotteries In Pennsylvania, to be darkened by the flight into 
Camden and the neighbouring towns of the numerous lot- 
tery brokers vith which Philadelphia is at present swarm- 
ing. Will she consent to receive into her bosom two hun- 
dred greedy lottery brokers to prey upon the vitals of her 
national prosperity? Will she consent to render inopera- 
tive the legislation of Pennsylvania, by presenting to her 
citizens an easy opportuuty of evading the law by going 
beyond the reach of its punishment? 

There exists no lottery in Illinois, but owing to the ab- 
sence of statutory prohibition against the sale of foreign 



79 

tickets, they have been offered for sale during the past 
summer. Bills for the introduction of the lottery system 
have been from time to time presented to the legislature, 
but without success. At the last session of the senate, a 
bill received its sanction for the purpose of improving the 
condition of Purgatory,* but a large majority of the house 
defeated the proposition. 

In Connecticut there are two unexpired grants ; the 
Retreat for the Insane and the Enfield Bridge Company. 
The sale of tickets, not authorised by these grants, is pro- 
hibited by the revised criminal code of 1830, under the 
penalty of fine or imprisonment. 

The laws by which lotteries are guarded in this state 
are so judicious that we propose to introduce an abstract 
of their provisions. 

The revised criminal code of 1830, prohibits all unau- 
thorized lotteries in any form. As the sections relating 
to this subject are short, they may be inserted entire : — 

" Sec. 94. If any person shall, without special liberty 
from the general assembly, set up any lottery to raise and 
collect money, or for the sale of any property; or if any 
person shall, by wages, shooting, or any kind of hazard, 
sell and dispose of any kind of property, or set up notifi- 
cations to induce people to bring in and deposit property 
to be disposed of in such manner, or to risk their money 
or credit in carrying on such designs ; every such person 
so offending, being thereof duly convicted, shall be pun- 
ished by fine not exceeding one hundred dollars nor less 
than twenty dollars, or by imprisonment in a common gaol 
for a term not exceeding one year nor less than sixty 
days." 

* The name of a road well known to travellers passing between Vincennes and 
St Louis. It is observed of the object of this bill by a correspondent who has kindly 
given us the information, that 4 it would be certainly a very proper application of 
money raised by means of lotteries, as through their agency, many are fitted for 
this dreadful place/ 



80 

M Sec. 95. That no person or persons shall, within this 
state, sell any lottery ticket or tickets, or any part, por- 
tion, or interest therein, excepting lotteries granted by 
the general assembly thereof; or open or keep any office, 
shop or store for the purpose of selling or procuring any 
lottery ticket or tickets or papers aforesaid, or any part, 
portion, or interest therein, or act as a broker, factor, or 
agent in buying, selling, or procuring to be bought, or 
sold or disposed of in any way whatever, any such ticket 
or tickets, or any part, portion or interest therein 7 or in 
effecting or endeavouring to effect any contract in regard 
thereto, or shall set up, exhibit, or publish, or cause to 
be set up, exhibited or published within this state any 
written or printed proposals — to buy, sell, or procure any 
such tickets or tickets, or any part, portion or interest 
therein ; and any person or persons so offending, being 
thereof duly convicted, shall be punished by fine not ex- 
ceeding three hundred dollars nor less than fifty dollars, 
or by imprisonment in a common gaol not less than two 
months nor more than one year." 

An act for regulating lotteries was also passed in 1830. 
By this act, the sale of shares of tickets is forbidden on 
pain of one hundred dollars for the first, and two hundred 
dollars for any subsequent offence. 

No ticket is to be sold for more than the scheme price, 
under the penalty of forfeiting the value of the ticket. 
The purchaser, in such case, may also sue for the price 
and compel the seller to answer on oath or suffer judgment 
as upon nil dicit. Prizes must be paid within 60 days after 
the last day of drawing. No deduction is to be made 
beyond 15 per cent: and no discount for prompt payment 
is allowed beyond six per cent per annum for the unexpired 
time of the 60 days, on pain of fifty dollars fine, with twice 
the amount of discount taken beyond the rate of 15 per 
cent. No scheme can be drawn on the principle of the com- 



81 

bination of numbers ; but it must be drawn by depositing 
separate ballots, on which shall be inscribed or written the 
blanks and prizes in one wheel, and ballots with the num- 
bers of the tickets in arithmetical order in another. Fine 
for drawing in any other manner, 500 dollars for the first 
offence, 1000 dollars for any subsequent offence, and pur- 
chasers of tickets may sue for the price. 

Actions on contracts, the consideration of which is 
wholly or partly the sale of lottery tickets, must be brought 
within three days. In all such actions the defendant may 
file his complaint, setting forth any violation of the statute, 
and compel the plaintiff to answer on oath, or suffer a 
non-suit with costs. Purchasers of tickets are made com- 
petent witnesses, and their testimony cannot afterwards be 
used against them in any other proceeding. 

Auditors are appointed by the general assembly to audit 
and adjust the accounts of every drawing, and make report 
to the general assembly. No succeeding class can be drawn 
until the accounts have been audited, settled, and adjust- 
ed, on pain of one thousand dollars, to be paid by any of- 
fending manager. 

All lotteries granted by the authority of the state must 
be drawn within it and not elsewhere. 

A subsequent act relative to accounting was passed in 
1831. The object of it is to ascertain when the amount 
of existing grants shall have been actually exhausted. 
It is manifest from this that Connecticut intends to abol- 
ish the system upon the expiration of the present grants. 

In Georgia there have been thirteen grants since the year 
1825. A penalty exists against the sale of foreign tickets, 
but the law from long evasion, is regarded as obsolete. 
The system which obtains in this state of disposing by lot- 
tery the public lands, is no otherwise pernicious than as it 
keeps alive a gambling propensity, and has been the means 
of giving them to unworthy recipients without a just equi- 



82 

valent. The value of lottery tickets annually sold in Savan- 
nah, whose population is 8000, is differently estimated at 
from 15,000 to 70,000 dollars. 

The last legislature of Missouri granted two lotteries 
one for the construction of a rail-road, and the other for 
the benefit of a hospital at St. Louis, to be under the direc- 
tion of ' The Sisters of Charity.' It is much to be regret- 
ted that Missouri should now for the first time embark in 
a system which the other states are endeavouring to abo- 
lish, under an impression that the cause of improvement or 
true benevolence can be promoted by it. But the argu- 
ment in favour of the bills was that as foreign lottery tick- 
ets were not prohibited, they found admission into the 
state, and there was no way to remedy the evil but by the 
encouragement of a domestic system! 

In Kentucky and Alabama grants are in being, and 
foreign lottery tickets sold without any legal impediment. 
Lotteries exist in Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland and 
Tennessee, but to what extent and under what circum- 
stances, we have no means of ascertaining. 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE 1. Page 8. 

Act of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, passed 17th 
February, 1762. 

An act for the more effectual suppressing and preventing 
of Lotteries. 

Whereas many mischievous and unlawful games, called lot- 
teries, have been set up in this province, which tend to the mani- 
fest corruption of youth, and the ruin and impoverishment of 
many poor families ; and whereas such pernicious practices may 
not only give opportunities to evil disposed persons to cheat and 
defraud the honest inhabitants of this province, but prove intro- 
ductive of vice, idleness and immorality, injurious to trade, 
commerce and industry, and against the common good, welfare 
and peace of this province : For remedy whereof, Be it enact- 
ed, That, 

1. Sect. I. All lotteries whatsoever whether public or pri- 
vate, are common and public nuisances, and against the com- 
mon good and welfare of this province. 

Sect. II. No person or persons whatsoever shall publicly or 
privately set up, erect, make, exercise, keep open, show or expose 
to be played at, drawn, or thrown at, any lottery, play or device, 
or shall cause or procure the same to be done, either by dice, 
lots, cards, balls, tickets, or any other numbers or figures, or in any 
other manner or way whatsoever ; and every person or persons 
that shall set up, erect, make, exercise, keep open, show or ex- 



84 

pose to be played at, drawn or thrown at, any such lottery, play 
or device, or that shall cause or procure the same to be done, 
after the publication of this act, and shall be thereof legally 
convicted in any court of quarter sessions, within the jurisdiction 
whereof the said offences shall be committed, or in the supreme 
court, if thereunto removed from any of the inferior courts within 
this province, shall forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred pounds, 
lawful money of Pennsylvania. 

2. Sect. III. All and every person and persons whatever, 
that shall buy, sell, or expose to sale, or that shall advertise or 
cause to be advertised, the sale of any ticket or tickets, or device 
whatsoever, in such lotteries, plays or devices, or that shall be 
aiding, assisting or in anywise concerned in managing, conduct- 
ing, or carrying on such lotteries, plays and devices, by what- 
soever name the same may be called, and be legally con- 
victed thereof in either of the courts aforesaid, shall forfeit and 
pay the sum of twenty pounds, lawful money of Pennsylvania, 
for every such offence, 

3. Sect. IV. All and every person and persons whatsoever, 
that shall within this province, buy, sell or expose to sale, or shall 
advertise or cause to be advertised, the sale of any ticket or 
tickets, or other device whatsoever, in any lottery, play or device 
whatsoever, which shall be hereafter set up, erected, made, exer- 
cised, kept open, shown or exposed to be drawn at, played at or 
thrown at, in or at any place or places out of this province, (state 
lotteries erected and licenced by act of Parliament in Great Bri- 
tain, only excepted, and foreprized,) and be thereof legally con- 
victed in manner aforseaid, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty 
pounds, lawful money of Pennsylvania, for every such offence. 

Sect. V. All the fines, forfeitures and penalties hereby in- 
flicted, shall be paid to the overseers of the poor, for the time 
being, for the use of the poor of the city, borough or township, 
where any of the said offences shall be committed. 



We add to this act of Assembly from an excellent book, de- 
signed to show the evils of the lottery, a passage in reply to the 
allegation often made, that it is not a game, and consequently 
does not fall under the denunciation against ordinary gambling. 



85 

The book is in the form of a dialogue, and the passage quoted is 
intended to combat the assertion that it is not a game. 

" Are not the silent partners in a game as much interested as 
those who are manually engaged 1 Are the gamesters upon the 
turf less interested for not riding their own horses? E very- 
ticket holder is a partner in the lottery game, and the managers 
are their deputed agents to play it. But the managers are by no 
means disinterested, their commissions upon the amount staked 
being a powerful stimulus to exertion ; and from causes which 
I have not descended to investigate, they not only withhold all 
profits from those who furnish the capital, but absorb a great 
portion of the capital itself. A case has been publicly stated in 
this city, and not disproved, where the adventurers in a single 
lottery suffered a loss of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. 
I make no allegation of fraud ; but that men without capitah 
should realize such immense profits from their labour, appears 
irreconcilable with fair dealing. I know not what so essentially 
constitutes gaming, as placing property at the disposition of haz- 
ard ; and in no case, actual or supposed, can it be more com- 
pletely subjected to the control of chance, than in the lottery 
wheel. The conclusion then is just, that managers, to protect 
their profession from suspicions of fraud and circumvention, in 
drawing the lot, must either acknowledge the lot to be a fair 
game of chance, or by denying it confirm those suspicions." 
* # # * # 

" I have heard you with patience and without surprise ; for I 
am no stranger to the influence of avarice upon principle, nor of 
sophistry required to ' make the worse appear the better reason ;' 
and with your indulgence, will analyze some of your positions, 
and try their validity by the standard of rectitude. Your descrip- 
tion of gaming is correct ; and I am the more particularly in- 
debted for your explanation, from its special application to lot- 
tery speculation ; for you have urged no reasons for the prohibiting 
of gaming, that do not apply with aggravated force to what 1 
denominate lottery gambling. You mention idleness as a con- 
comitant of gaming. What has a greater tendency to remit 
exertions than the expectation of independence without it ? You 
justly insert dissipation in your list of evils attached to gaming. 
In what other game is the subversion of reason so neccessary 

L 



86 

for the success of the players as in that of lottery ? This is 
evinced by the uniform support given by lottery dealers to the 
licensing system, and their opposition to the temperance refor- 
mation. What class of venders make sale of so many lottery 
tickets as retailers of ardent spirits ? The winner must treat for 
his luck, and the loser drown his grief in the bottle. You say 
that dishonesty is an appurtenance of gaming. I agree with you, 
and hope to convince you that no game so necessarily engenders 
this vice as the one which lottery brokers play for a living. Be not 
disturbed ; I bring no ■ railing accusation' against the players, 
however much justice might inculpate them. My business is 
with the dishonest principle which is inseparably interwoven 
with the system. You pertinently annex covetousness, avarice, 
and disregard to the rights of others, to tke catalogue of delin- 
quencies. I shall consider them all one family, and treat them 
as kindred. What better evidence can be produced of the ex- 
istence of dishonest principles in men, than their coveting their 
neighbour's goods, without paying a consideration ? And where 
is this principle inculcated so effectually and unblushingly as in 
lotteries ? Here adventurers are enticed by every seductive ar- 
tifice to risk their money. The allurements of sudden wealth are 
displayed in their most dazzling colours. The devout aspiration 

* lead us not into temptation/ which was enjoined by Him who 

* spake as never man spake/ is little heeded by the adroit and 
interested manager. The ignorant and unwary are thus en- 
trapped, and made the willing converts to sordid selfishness- 
The ties of social interest are loosened, and the chords of recip- 
rocal good will severed. Liberality is supplanted by covetous- 
ness, and generosity by avarice ; and the gamester, despoiled of 
all the benevolent feelings of his nature, lives for himself alone. 
He envies the prosperous, and asperses the good. He well knows 
that others must lose what he hopes to win ; and the climax 
of his hope is the ruin of his neighbours. Such unsocial feelings 
and debasing affections are generated by the lottery system, and 
'grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength.' They 
take full possession of the minds of adventurous youth, and moral 
honesty ■ has not where to lay its head.' 

" Do you doubt these truths, sir ? attend the police courts of 
our eity, and witness the insipient progress of these principles in 



87 

juvenile offenders. See their early depravity nourished by the 
poisonous aliment of gambling speculation ; and if I am not mis- 
informed, lottery tickets are the frequent stakes at the most filthy 
gambling tables. The contagion infects the whole community ; 
neither town, village, nor- hamlet is free from the contamination. 
Mechanics and children issue unauthorised schemes, and to 
• conspire to defraud' is the popular test of ingenious merit, and 
has been deemed legally excusable by our courts of judicature. 
Your plea in support of the lottery system, that its existence is 
isdispensable for the accomplishment of objects of public utility, 
I contend is untenable. The equality of the contributions which 
you assert, is warranted by no experience ; the reverse is the 
fact. Nine-tenths of the amount raised by lottery for public im- 
provements, I have confidence to believe, arepaid by the poorer 
class of people, to whom these improvements can be of little or 
no value." 



NOTE 2. Page 10. 

In Mr. Wallace's report, made to the legislature on the 11th 
of February, 183S, it is stated, that the gross amount of lotteries 
authorised by the Union Canal Company from 1811 up to the 
end of the year, was $26,562,947. The data of this calculation, 
including the estimate for the present year, are shown by the 
following tables. 



88 



1. Statement of all the Schemes of the Union Canal Lotteries 
prior to the new organization of the Company, which have 
been approved by the Board of Managers, advertised and 
drawn, with the number of tickets in each scheme and the 
scheme price thereof; also, the aggregate amount of prizes 
in each scheme, and the time of drawing. 



No. of 


No. of 


Scheme 


Amount of 


Time of 


Contract with whom made, and the 


Scheme. 


Tickets. 


Price. 


Prizes. 


Drawing. 


date thereof. 


1st 


35,000 


$10 00 


8350,000 


With all safe 
despatch. 


Henry Pratt, April 27, 1812. 


2d 


40,000 


10 00 


400,000 


Do. 


Benj. B. Howell, March 3 1, 18 14. 


3d 


40,000 


10 00 


400,000 


Do. 


Do. May 22, 1815. 


4th 


35,000 


6 00 


210,000 


Do. 


Solomon Allen, Jan. 13, 1817. 


5th 


15,000 


23 00 


345,000 


Do. 


Do. Dec. 13, 1817. 


6th 


16,000 


33 00 


528,000 


Do. 


Do. Jan. 13, 1818. 


7th 


20,000 


10 00 


200,000 


Do. 


Do. Dec 16, 1819. 


8th 


10,000 


47 50 


475,000 


Do. 


Do. May 19, 1820. 


9th 


20,000 


8 00 


160,000 


Do. 


Do. March 17, 1821. 



2. Statement of the Schemes of the Union Canal Lottery which 
have been approved by the Board of Managers, showing the 
number of tickets in each scheme, the scheme price thereof, 
and the aggregate amount of prizes and time of drawing 
thereof, under the new organization of the Company and of 
the Managers elected on the 21st day of May, 1821. — Archi- 
bald M'Intyre, Contractor and Manager of the Lotteries. 

















Schemes. 


Tickets. 


Price. 


Prizes. 


Time of Drawing. 




10th Class. 


20,000 


$5 


$100,000 


April 16, 1822. 




1st new series. 


4,060 


3 


12,180 


Feb. 7, 


*; 


2d do. 


" 


5 


20,300 


April 11, « 


£ 


3d do. 


6,545 


7 


45,815 


Nov. 21, " 


g 


4th do. 


5,456 


6 


32,736 


Feb. 5, 1823. 


6 


5th do. 


7,140 


6 


42,840 


April 2, * 




6th do. 


11,480 


5 


57,400 


Oct. 7, » 




7th do. 


4,190 


5 


70,950 


Jan. 17, 1824. 


P 


8th • do. 


7,980 


4 


31,920 


Feb. 26, M 


>» 


9th do. 


M 


4 


« 


March 25, " 


HH 


10th do. 


M 


4 


K 


April 22, « 


3 


11th do. 


" 


4 


" 


May 27, " 




12th do. 


tt 


4 


" 


June 24, " 




L ISth do. 


17,550 


5 


87,750 


Oct. 28, « 









Number of 


Scheme 


Amount of 






Ichemt 


. 


Tickets. 


Price. 


Prizes. 


1 Time of Drawing. 




' 14th class, 


new series. 


34,220 


S3 


8273,760 


January 5, 1825. 




15th 


da 


u 


6 


205,320 


March 9, " 




16th 


do. 


M 


8 


273,760 


May 11, • 




17th 


do. 


«* 


8 


44 


July 6, • 




18th 


do. 


45,760 


4 


183,040 


Sept. 7, 




19th 


do. 


M 


8 


366,080 


February 1, 1826. 




20th 


do. 


M 


3 


137,280 


March 29, « 




21st 


da 


34,220 


3 25 


111,215 


May 3, a 




22d 


da 


44 


4 


136,880 


June 14, - 




23d 


da 


M 


4 


a 


July 26, 




24th 


da 


M 


3 


102,660 


Sept 20, " 




25th 


da 


M 


4 


. 136,880 


Nov. 15, 




26th 


da 


M 


5 


171,100 


January 10, 1827. 




27th 


da 


** 


4 


136,880 


March 28, ■ 




28th 


da 


M 


3 


102,660 


May 2, « 




29th 


da 


M 


4 


136,880 


June 16, * 




30th 


da 


24,804 


4 


99,216 


July 25, . ■ 




31st 


da 


H 


5 


124,020 


August 22, " 




32d 


da 


a 


5 


tt 


Sept 19i 




33d 


da 


u 


4 


99,216 


Oct 10, 


. 


34th 


da 


34,220 


3 


102,660 


Nov. 14, 


'o 


35th 


da 


14,190 


8 


113,520 


Dec. 26, 


"S 


36th 


da 


a 


8 


■ 


January 23, 1828. 


5 
o 


1st class, do. 1828. 


H 


8 


a 


Feb. 15, 


T3 


2d 


da 


ft 


4 


56,760 


March 19* ■ 


§ 


3d 


do. 


a 


4 


tt 


April 16, * 


« ' 


4th 


do. 


24,804 


4 


99,216 


May 7, 




5th 


da 


" 


3 


74,412 


May 31, * 




6th 


da 


14,190 


3 


42,570 


June 24s " 


a 


7th 


da 


** 


3 


■ 


July 17, 


s 


8th 


da 


u 


2 30 


32,637 


Aug. 4, 




9th 


da 


H 


4 


56,760 


do. 27, 




10th 


da 


M 


5 


70,950 


Sept 13, 




11th 


da 


M 


8 


113,520 


Oct. 4, « 




12th 


da 


17,296 


8 


138,368 


do. 27, 




13th 


da 


14,190 


8 


113,520 


Nov. 25, 




14th 


da 


11,480 


16 


183,680 


Dec. 31, ■ 




15th 


da 


H 


8 


91,840 


January 30, 1829. 




1st class, do. 1829. 


N 


4 


45,920 


Feb. 21, 




2d 


da 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


March 24, u 




3d 


da 


M 


8 


273,760 


April 16, ■ 




. 4th 


da 


M 


8 


u 


May 4, « 




5th 


da 


H 


4 


136,880 


May 22, 




6th 


do. 


N 


8 


273,760 


June 13, « 




7th 


da 


M 


4 


136,880 


July 3, " 




8th 


do. 


M 


3 


102,660 


do. 25, 




9th 


da 


" 


4 


136,880 


Aug. 15, « 




10th 


do. 


M 


8 


273,760 


Sept 5, 




11th 


da 


M 


4 


136,880 


do. 26, w 




12th 


da 


17,296 


8 


138,368 


Oct 20, 




13th 


da 


34,220 


8 


273,760 


Nov. 14, 




14th 


do. 


K 


8 


H 


Dec. 17, ■ 1 
January 2, 1810. j 




15th 


ia 


1 


8 


" 



90 



Schemes. 



Number of 
Tickets. 



Scheme 
Price. 



Amount of 
Prizea. 



Time of Drawing. 



let Class, 1830. 
2d do. 



3d 


do. 


4th 


do. 


5th 


do. 


6th 


do. 


7th 


do. 


8th 


da 


9th 


do. 


10th 


do- 


11th 


do. 


12th 


do. 


13th 


da 


14th 


do. 


15th 


da 


16th 


da 


17th 


da 


18th 


da 


19th 


da 


20th 


da 


21st 


da 


22d 


da 


23d 


da 


24th 


da 



1st Class, 1831. 
2d do. 



3d 

4th 

5th 

6th 

7th 

8th 

9th 

10th 

11th 

12th 

13th 

14th 

15th 

16th 

17th 

18th 

19th 

V 20th 

21st 

22d 

23d 

24th 

25th 

26th 



do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
da 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
da 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
da 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 
do. 



34,220 
24,804 



34,220 
24,804 
34,220 



45,760 
34,220 
45,760 

it 

M 

34,220 



45,760 
u 

34,220 

24,804 
45,760 
24,804 
45,760 
17,296 
45,760 
34,220 
24,804 

M 

84,220 



50 



$136,880 

198,432 

«t 

161,226 
124,020 
239,540 
198,432 
136,880 

u 

171,100 
136,880 



102,660 
136,880 
273,760 
183,040 
273,760 
183,040 
366,080 
183,040 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
183,040 
366,080 
136,880 
198,432 
183,040 
198,432 
183,040 
138,368 
183,040 
273,760 
99,216 
198,432 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 
136,880 
273,760 



January 23, 1830. 
Feb. 6, ■ 

do. 20, 

March 6, M 
do. 26, 
April 20, " 
May 8, . w 
do. 22, 

June 5, ■ 

do. 19, 

July 3, M 

do, 17, 
do. 31, 

Aug. 14, * 
do. 28, 
Sept 11, 
do. 25, 
Oct. 9, 
do. 23, 

Nov. 6, " 

do. 20, 
Dec. 4, 

da 18, * 

January 3, 1831. 
do. 15, « 
do. 29, " 
Feb. 12, 
do. 26, ** 

March 12, M 
do. 26, * 
April 9, « 

do. 23, 

May 7, « 

do. 21, 

June 4, " 

do. 18, •* 

July 2, « 

do. 16, 

do. 30, « 

Aug. 13, " 
da 27, 
Sept. 10, " 
da 24, 
Oct 8, " 

do. 22, " 

Nov. 5, 
do. 19, 

Dec. 3, « 

do. 17, 
do. 31, 



91 



Thames. 


Number of 
Ticket!. 


Scheme 
Price. 


Amount of 

Prisea. 


Time of Drawing. 




f 1st Class, 1832. 


34,220 


$3 


$102,660 


January 14, 


1832. 




2d 


do. 


u 


8 


273,760 


do. 28, 


M 




3d 


do. 


24,804' 


4 


99,216 


Feb. 11, 


" 




4th 


do % 


44 


8 


198,432 


do. 28, 


44 




5th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


March 10, 


H 


^j 


6tJi 


do. 


M 


8 


273,760 


do. 24, 


M 




7th 


do. 


H 


4 


136,880 


April 7, 


" 


C 


8th 


do. 


44 


6 40 


219,008 


do. 21, 


M 


u 


9th 


da 


M 


4 


136,880 


May 5, 


K 


c 


10th 


do. 


44 


8 


273,7,60 


do. 19, 


H 


1 


11th 


do. 


M 


4 


136,880 


June 2, 


H 


a. 


12th 


do. 


H 


8 


273,760 


do. 16, 


u 




13th 


do. 


M 


4 


136,880 


do. 30, 


m 




14th 


do. 


M 


8 


273,760 


July 14, 


44 


a 


15th 


do. 


M 


3 


102,660 


do. 28, 


M 


3 


16th 


do. 


44 


6 


205,320 


Aug. 11, 


M 


u-, 


17th 


do. 


45,760 


3 


137,280 


do. 25, 


44 


S3 


18th 


do. 


" 


5 


228,800 


Sept. 8, 


M 


19th 


do. 


34,220 


4 


136,880 


do. 22, 


a 


o 


20th 


do. 


44 


8 


273,760 


Oct. 6, 


«* 


c 
O 


21st 


do. 


45,760 


5 


228,800 


do. 20, 


M 




22d 


do. 


44 


8 


366,080 


Nov. 3, 


M 




23d 


do. 


n 


4 


183,040 


do. 17, 


« 




24th 


do. 


H 


8 


366,080 


Dec. 1, 


H 




25th 


do. 


H 


4 


183,040 


do. 15, 


44 




26th' 


do. 


" 


5 


228,800 


do. 29, 


u 1 



92 



The schemes issued from December 31, 1832, to November 16, 
1833, are as follow, according to a list which has been regularly- 
kept by a gentleman of this city. 



1833. 


Number of 


Scheme 


Amount of 




Lowest 


No. Dr'n 


Class 


Tickets. 


Price. 


Scheme. 


Time of Drawing. 


Prize. 


Ballots. 


1 


34,220 


$4 


$136,880 


January 12, 1833. 


5 


9 


2 


45,760 


8 


366,080 


do. 26, « 


10 


10 


8 


M 


4 


183,040 


February 9> * 


5 


10 


. 4 


• 


8 


366'080 


do. 23, * 


10 


10 


5 


M 


4 


183,040 


March 9, " 


5 


10 


6 


■ 


8 


366,040 


do. 23, M 


12 


10 


7 


• 


4 


183,040 


April 6, u 


5 


10 


8 


M 


8 


366,080 


do. 20, 


10 


10 


9 


■ 


4 


183,040 


May 4, * 


5 


10 


10 


M 


8 


366,080 


do. 18, 


12 


10 


11 


■ 


4 


183,040 


Juno 1, u 


5 


10 


12 


♦. 


6 


274,560 


do. 15, 


8 


10 


13 


M 


4 


183,040 


do. 29, 


5 


10 


14 


« 


8 


366,080 


July 13, 


10 


10 


15 


K 


3 


137,280 


do. 27, « 


4 


10 


16 


« 


6 


274,560 


August 10, M 


8 


10 


17 


■ 


4 


183,040 


do. 24, " 


5 


10 


18 


a 


8 


366,080 


September 7, " 


12 


10 


19 


« 


4 


183,040 


do. 21, « 


5 


10 


20 


u 


8 


366,080 


October 5, M 


10 


10 


21 


« 


4 


183,040 


ob 19, . " 


5 


10 


22 


M 


8 


366,080 


November 2, " 


12 


10 


23 


" 


4 


183,040 


do. 16, " 


5 


10 



General summary of the lottery schemes above given in 

detail. 



1. From April 2, 1811, to March 26, 1821, 83,068,000 

2. From March 26, 1821, to Dec. 31, 1832, 23,494,947 

3. From Dec. 31, 1832, to Nov. 16, 1833, 5,948,360 



Add for December, 1833, two schemes, 
one for £366,080, do. $183,040, 



8 32,51 1,307 
540,120 

$33,060,427 



93 



NOTE 3. Page 21. 

The debate in the British Parliament, has been well abridged 
by the Hon. Joseph Hemphill, in a speech which he delivered in 
the Legislature of Pennsylvania, during the session of 1829-30. 
The whole speech is so excellent that we insert it in extenso, as 
well for the judicious suggestions it contains on the general sub- 
ject, as for the immediate purpose of its introduction. 

Pennsylvania Legislature. 

Remarks of Mr. Hemphill, on the resolution offered by him pro- 
posing an amendment of the Constitution of the United States. 

Mr. Hemphill said, that he was so heartily disposed to effect 
an entire abolition of lotteries, not only in Pennsylvania, but 
throughout the Union, that he had come to a resolution which 
he had never anticipated or in the least suspected — he said, the 
subject had grown so serious and its consequences were so per- 
nicious to the morals of society, that the representatives of the 
people were in a manner demanded to do all in their power to 
eradicate the evil. The very sight of lottery signs, he said, had 
become odious ; we can scarcely pass a lottery office, without 
seeing the unfortunate adventurers, who are principally of the 
poorer classes of society, going in or out. If we travel through 
any town or village, no matter in what direction, the same spec- 
tacle is every where exhibited. 

The passion for this species of gambling is widely spread and 
increasing. It is a practice, he said, whether considered in the 
light of revenue or in its effects on the morals of the people that 
is impolitic and destructive. The charms and false hopes of 
gain set forth in the splendid schemes, relaxed the minds of 
thousands from their useful habits of industry. It destroys much 
of the happiness of the poor, as their expectations are not real- 
ised, a depression of spirits follows, and to relieve themselves, 
they again and again visit the deceiving temple of fortune, until 
their industrious habits are completely impaired, their little earn- 
ings lost, and their debts left unpaid. It often leads to abject 
pauperism, misery and crime. Asa source of revenue, it is the 
worst that can be imagined ; the raising of money at the expense 

M 



94 

of the morals of the people is wrong in itself, and besides it 
diminishes industry, which is the real fountain of all revenue. If 
we consider the subject merely as a money concern, it is alto- 
gether unequal and unjust. From the twenty-one millions of dol- 
lars contained in the lottery schemes since 1811, not more than 
between 6 or 700,000 dollars can be considered as revenue ; a 
part under the name of prizes has gone to a very few, and the 
rest, with the exception of the unsold tickets, has left the pockets 
of the people never to return. % 

If such a sum in this partial manner, had been exacted by tax- 
ation and force, insurrections and bloodshed would have been 
the consequences. It is nothing but delusion and the most art- 
ful seducements, which could have so far bewildered the minds 
of the people ; and it is our duty, to rescue them from such 
temptations, and to rally the energies of the mind and body for 
the performance of all the beneficial avocations of life ; it is a 
high sense of virtue and justice, which is the strongest guarantee 
for industry and the security of independence. 

I have lately read (said Mr. H.) an interesting debate which 
took place in 1819 in the British parliament on the subject of 
lotteries, and as the effects of lotteries must be very much the 
same every where, the remarks then made will in no small 
degree apply here. I will be allowed, said he, to bring the most 
prominent parts of them to the notice of this house. The debate 
arose on the motion of Mr. Lyttleton, and there were engaged 
in it the mover, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Buxton, 
Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Canning, Mr. Tierney, Lord Castlereagh, 
and several other members. 

The subject he supposed had before that time been frequently 
under discussion, as Mr. Lyttleton, in the commencement of his 
speech, observed that he expected to be blamed for agitating a 
question which had been so often decided, that it might be as 
well, if it were for ever abandoned. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, it seems, had said, on a 
previous occasion, that there was always afloat a given quantity 
of rank and detestable vice in society, and that he had a right 
as a financier to turn it to the best account; that there was a 
spirit of gambling in the community, that he could not extirpate, 
and if he derived a profit from it, he ought to receive the thanks 



95 

and not the censure of the nation. To this it was replied, that 
the doctrine that private vices were public benefits, had long 
been exploded; and that the villanous artifices which were 
resorted to, in order to provoke and excite the vicious spirit of 
gambling, ought not to be tolerated. 

It appears that the government raised about three hundred 
thousand pounds sterling by the lotteries, and it was asked where 
will be the substitute for the revenue if the lotteries are to be put 
down ; to this it was answered, reduce the army or raise money 
in any way rather than to continue the moral guilt of the sys- 
tem. The antiquity of the practice was resorted to, and some 
said it had been in existence from the revolution ; to this it was 
replied, that the sin of the slave trade was of an old standing, 
and yet that England was taking the lead to abolish it — but that 
in lotteries all that was base in the practice of private gambling 
was recognized and adopted by the state. Some of the remarks 
were perhaps too severe, at any rate they would be so for this 
country, as our managers of lotteries have been among the most 
respectable of our citizens. The mover said, that the other day 
he had gone down to Cooper's Hall, the place where the rascaiy 
transaction of the lottery was carrying on ; and having with 
some difficulty obtained admission, he saw across a board which 
was placed to exclude strangers, several grave persons (for 
rogues were apt to look grave especially in the presence of their 
dupes) seated in the most dignified manner, and near them two 
boys, in the garb of Christ's Hospital, drawing the tickets from 
the wheel. 

This was to induce the people to believe that the lottery had 
the sanction of such virtuous and intelligent individuals as the 
Governor of Christ's Hospital. 

The speakers painted the deceptive practices which were 
employed to sell the tickets and raise the prices. Alphabetical 
lists were spread through the country, of the villages and places 
to which prizes had fallen, or to use the language of the news- 
papers, to which the goddess of fortune was most propitious. 
This created a ruinous superstition on the ignorant portion of 
the population. 

It was often promised to pay the winners of certain prizes In 
wine, that being rare, on account of the duties, was an additional 



96 

temptation — and a Jew in a corner, it was said, would give a 
premium for it over and above its legal price, so that wine and 
gold were the baits used to catch the people. 

The misnaming of prizes too, was said to be a fraud on the 
people — that was called a prize by which a man only lost half 
his money— and it was observed, that whoever said that a man, 
who having paid twenty pounds for his ticket, and received at 
the lottery office ten pounds,, had got a prize, told a lie, and 
whoever believed it, was an arrant fool. 

Instances were named, of the fatal effects which followed the 
drawing of a prize by a single individual, in small towns and 
villages, as it encouraged others to adventure to their disappoint- 
ment and ruin. A village called Bidewell, had had the misfor- 
tune to be twice visited by a golden shower — after which the 
spirit of gambling raged to such a height, as to completely 
destroy the habits of the people. 

At Sheffield, the evil had become so great that one virtuous 
editor would not put the puffs in his journal, by which he sus- 
tained a heavy loss. 

In one village a benefit society for the support of the sick and 
aged had been established, where they paid their contributions 
cheerfully, lest any misfortune might bring them to the degrada- 
tion of becoming chargeable to the parish — but in another town 
only a few miles distant, an association of a very different kind 
had been formed for the purpose of speculating in lotteries. By 
that association a prize was gained of two or three thousand 
pounds. No sooner was the news heard in the first village, than 
the benefit society fell into disrepute and a lottery club was esta- 
blished, in which the old and the young eagerly subscribed. 

The member said, that fifteen years had passed, during which 
time he had heard nothing of either establishment, but with a 
view to the question then before the house, he had lately taken 
pains to inquire into their fate, and had found that the lottery 
associations had failed, and in their fall had drawn down the 
benefit society; that most useful establishment, which, with a 
wise foreknowledge, was to provide for the decrepitude of age 
by the earnings of youth and industry. It had failed, and 
many of the members were then suing for relief from the parish. 
Another member said, that the wife of a servant of his, an in- 



97 



dustrious man, who earned at his employment two guineas a 
week, had carried her conviction of the efficacy of the insu- 
rances and the certainty of her obtaining a prize so far, that she 
completely ruined him, and he died amidst want and wretched- 
ness, of a broken heart. 

Mr. H. said, that he would advert for a moment to the con- 
cluding part of one gentleman's speech, the object of which was 
to show that it was the lowest class of persons who were the 
principal dupes and sufferers in lotteries. A single ticket would 
be prchased by a club of twenty or thirty persons. In the poor- 
est part of London, the poor actually subscribed to buy a ticket, 
by instalments of from one half penny to sixpence each, the 
ticket was procured and disappointed them all by coming out a 
blank. The member said that an experienced banker had in- 
formed him, that he had never known a fraud among his clerks, 
without finding that the parties had had some previous concern 
in lotteries; and he then went on to say, that of the thousands 
and tens of thousands of instances wherein the tradesmen had 
defrauded his creditors, the servant robbed his master, and the 
clerk embezzled the property of his employer, the greater num- 
ber had been the results of the delusion held out by government, 
for financial expedients altogether unworthy of a great nation. 

Mr. H. said, that four or five years after the debate, lotteries 
were entirely abolished in the kingdom of England. But their 
abolition in Pennsylvania, he said, will be no more than a par- 
tial remedy, while lotteries are tolerated in the surrounding 
states; the sale of lottery tickets not authorized by the state, 
has been inhibited ever since the year 1762, yet they were sold 
almost in as great quantities as if the laws had never been passed. 
It is true, that after the abolition here, these laws will not be 
so easily evaded, and the lottery signs will disappear. Still a 
thousand artifices will be resorted to — pocket brokers will vend 
them every where, as soon as the watchfulness to enforce the 
laws shall become a little relaxed. While we are about it, our 
aim should be, to uproot and extirpate, for ever, the moral evil 
from the face of the whole country. The slave trade was never 
more pernicious in its consequences on society — and to purify 
the American atmosphere from the baneful effects of this justly 
condemned practice, there is but one radical remedy, and that 



98 

is by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in- 
hibiting in Congress and the several states, the power of raising 
money by way of lottery. He had said, and fully believed at 
the time, that he never would vote for an amendment to the 
Federal Constitution, except to limit the presidency to one term, 
and to prevent the election from going to the House of Repre- 
sentatives. He wished the Constitution to descend to posterity 
as an American family-piece, to be venerated and admired by 
them for its original appearance, but the amendment he proposed 
being in the pursuit of a great moral good, can be no tarnish on 
that most valuable and celebrated performance of our ancestors, 
and his mind became prepared to offer it. It is as follows : — 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, that 
the following article be proposed as an amendment to the Con- 
stitution of the United States : 

Article the 13th. That no state or territory, after the 22d of 
February, 1837, shall have power to raise money, or to author- 
ize the same to be raised by way of a lottery, and that no such 
power thereafter shall exist in the Congress of ihe United States. 
It will be observed, that no state rights are transferred to be 
exercised by Congress; it is merely the extinction of the power 
to raise money by lottery in the general and state governments 
and the territories. 

Prior to 1808, the slave trade could be carried on. After that 
<date, the Constitution invested Congress with a discretion over 
the subject, which has been exercised on the principles of hu- 
manity, and the trade prohibited. 

The amendment is a complete annihilation of power in the 
governments and the reservation of it to the people, who in pur- 
suance of the Constitution, can at any time reinstate it. It is 
similar to the provisions of the Constitution, which prohibits 
Congress and the states from granting titles of nobility. 

Mr. H. then remarked, that he simply proposed the amend- 
ment, for as yet having not had time or opportunities to gain 
sufficiently the confidence of the members, he feared, it might 
appear rash in him to press on the discussion of a subject of such 
high magnitude. If it is worthy of notice, others will pursue it ; 
if therefore there is any indisposition to act upon it at this mo- 



99 

ment, or if there should be any likelihood of its being lost, he 
hoped to be indulged to lay it on the table, for he did not wish 
to see it rejected, as he felt a confidence that if it did not pass 
now, that at some other day and by some other legislature, such 
a proposition would be cherished and adopted. 



NOTE 4. Page 67. 

We quote that part of the act for the Abolition of Lotteries in 
Pennsylvania passed at the last session, which would seem 
properly to fall under its title. The resolutions of Mr. Toland, 
afterwards adopted, are subjoined. 

An Act for the Abolition of Lotteries. — Passed the first day 
of March, 1833. 

Whereas, by certain acts of Assembly heretofore enacted, 
the right to raise by way of lottery certain sums of money, was 
granted to the Union Canal Company of Pennsylvania : And 
whereas, it appears to the Legislature that the said right has 
been fully exercised and exhausted: And whereas, all other 
rights to raise money by lottery, heretofore granted by the Le- 
gislature have either been exercised or exhausted, or have been 
abandoned, and it being the intention of the Legislature to put 
an entire stop to the evils arising from lotteries and the sale of 
lottery tickets. 

Sect. 1. Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General 
Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the 
same, That from and after the thirty first day of December, 
one thousand eight hundred and thirty three, all and every lotte- 
ry and lotteries, and device and devices in the nature of lotteries, 
shall be utterly and entirely abolished, and are hereby declared 
to be thenceforth unauthorized and unlawful. 

Sect. 2. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, 
That from and after the day aforesaid, any person or persons 
who shall sell or expose to sale, or cause to be sold or exposed 
to sale, or shall keep on hand for the purpose of sale, or shall 
advertise or cause to be advertised for sale, or shall aid or as- 



100 

sist, or be in any wise concerned in the sale, or exposure to 
sale, of any lottery ticket or tickets, or any share or part of any 
lottery ticket, in any lottery or device in the nature of a lottery 
within this commonwealth, or elsewhere, and any person or per- 
sons who shall advertise or cause to be advertised, the drawing 
of any scheme in any lottery, or be in any way concerned in 
the managing, conducting, carrying on, or drawing of any lottery 
or device in the nature of a lottery, and shall be convicted thereof 
in any court of competent jurisdiction, shall, for each and every 
such offence, forfeit and pay a sum not less than one hundred 
dollars, and not exceeding ten thousand dollars, or be sentenced 
to undergo an imprisonment not exceeding six months, at the 
discretion of the court. 

Mr. Toland's Resolutions relative to the entire Jlbolition of 
Lotteries, — Adopted the third day of April, 1833. 

Whereas, lotteries are an acknowledged evil of great magni- 
tude, vitally injurious to the morals and industry of any com- 
munity: And whereas, the public and private injuries resulting 
from lotteries can only be remedied by their total abolition: 
And whereas, one state cannot effectually suppress the sale of 
lottery tickets, and the pursuit of this mode of gaming, without 
the co-operation of the other states of the Union: And whereas, 
the state of Pennsylvania has recently enacted that all lotteries 
shall "be totally abolished in said state from and after the thirty- 
first day of December next, and has prohibited the sale of any 
ticket or tickets within the same, after said period. Therefore, 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met, That 
the governor be requested to transmit a copy of the first and 
second sections of the act of Assembly, passed March 1st, 1833, 
entitled, " An act for the entire abolition of lotteries," together 
with a copy of these resolutions, to the governor of each state, 
with a request that he will, at the earliest period, lay the same 
before the legislature of his state, and request their co-operation 
in the effort of this commonwealth to effect the entire abolition 
of lotteries. 

And be it further resolved by the authority aforesaid, That 



101 

the governor be requested to transmit a copy of the said sections 
and of these resolutions to the president of the United States, 
with a request that he will at the earliest period lay the same 
before congrc and use such measures as may in his opinion be 
best calculated to* effect the entire abolition of lotteries within 
the District of Columbia. 



NOTE 5. Page 71. 

The following extract from a recent presentment made in 
New York, may be here quoted in confirmation of the text : 

" The Grand Jury cannot separate without calling the atten- 
tion of the Court to the subject of lotteries. The evils arising 
from this source are greater than at any former period, and fall 
principality upon the poorer and less informed portion of the 
community. In the year 1824 there were but from eight to ten 
dealers in lottery tickets in the city, while at this time there are 
one hundred and forty-seven, and some of our principal streets 
are literally disfigured by their advertisements. Citizens and 
strangers are interrupted by boys and men thrusting lottery ad- 
vertisements into their hands as they pass through our streets. 
■# - # # * * * 

" In order to understand some of the evils arising from the 
sale of foreign lottery tickets, we would specify, the running of 
expresses, the mispayment of prizes, the forgery of numbers, 
fradulent drawers, non-payment of prizes, and last, not least, 
policying. On this subject we would' say, there are some offi- 
ces in this city that on the day the account of the drawers is 
received from abroad, are crowded w r ith persons who have paid 
from three dollars to some shillings each, for a policy against 
certain numbers being drawn. These persons are mostly ser- 
vants or poor people, who spend their time and means in this 
way, affording great temptation after they have policied away 
their own property to use that of others. In all these points we 
have sufficient evidence to make this presentment 

" One of our number states, that during the late epidemic he 
had charge of a district in the upper part of the city for the 

N 



102 

purpose of attending the wants of the poor, and in conversing 
with some of the destitute, he learned that they had spent their 
earnings in procuring lottery tickets. Another states, that he 
knew an individual that expended all his earnings (above paying 
his necessary expenses) for a year, which amounted to several 
hundred dollars. Another says, that not long since it came to 
his personal knowledge that a person was intrusted with about 
seven hundred dollars to take to another part of the country, 
but in this city he was induced to purchase a ticket, which was 
a blank. He then ventured more to gain what was lost, and 
went on till all was gone ; the last sum he spent was two hun- 
dred dollars at one time for tickets in a fit of desperation. 

" If such a mass of facts respecting this evil has come to the 
personal knowledge of so smal a number of individuals as com- 
pose this Grand Jury, what must be the sum total of misery 
caused by the practice complained of?" 



NOTE 6. Page 74. 

The following interesting discussion of the question suggested 
In the text, is from the Report of a Special Committee of the 
Legislature of Massachusetts, Febuary, 1833. 

Contrary to the opinion of the Governor in his Message, and 
contrary to the general opinion entertained among many intel- 
ligent citizens, so far as the Committee have had opportunity to 
learn those opinions — the Attorney General entertains a belief 
that the penalties provided by existing statutes are severe enough ; 
and that if legal proof of the offence can be obtained, no man 
could long stand out in opposition to the law, with its present 
penalties. It is impunity, according to his belief, that encourages 
the lottery dealers. " It is the chance that nobody will tell — 
that the Grand Jury will never know — which induces them to 
run the hazard. When there is no regular informer, when so 
many obstacles exist to getting and giving information against 
them, they have a right to suppose they shall not be found out. 
But let them see that what they are doing will be detected, and 
the penalty cannot be borne. Its certainty, not its extravagance, 



103 

will be the best protection of the public." In other parts of his 
letter, the Attorney General dwells with peculiar emphasis on 
the importance of providing the means of " conveying to a Jury 
the knowledge of what is passing in the crowd," of giving " to 
some one or the other of public officers authority and means 
to investigate and unravel the conduct of suspected parties ;" and 
to the Committee he recommends taking " care that the law is 
not cheated of its victims, because nobody is empowered to see 
where they are. 

If individuals on their own responsibility contrive to make a 
Lottery, or if a single individual undertake to make one, it should 
be deemed an offence of a higher grade than that of selling tick- 
ets in a Lottery, granted by competent authority in some other 
State, and merits a severer punishment. Although the Commit- 
tee would not undertake to say that such an act would not, un- 
der some circumstances, amount to a fraud at common law and 
be punishable as such, yet, as the offence is forbidden by statute, 
and a specific penalty is provided, it is possible that a court 
might consider the penalty in the act as the rule to be ob- 
served in awarding the punishment. It should, undoubtedly, be 
incumbent on every vender of a ticket, who may be prosecuted 
for vending, to prove that it was in a Lottery granted by the 
law of some other State ; otherwise the sale should be considered 
a fraud on the purchaser as well as an offence against the State. 

The Committee have availed themselves of such information 
and advice as they could obtain from other gentlemen of high 
standing at the bar, and familiar with the administration of the 
criminal code ; among whom was the honourable Judge of the 
Municipal Court of the City of Boston. They have endeavoured 
according to the best of their ability to investigate the nature, 
operations, and effects of Lotteries ; to compare opinions with 
facts ; to ascertain what is demanded by public sentiment, and 
what may be authorized by justice, humanity, and the true 
policy of a moral and enlightened legislature. 

The public sentiment, at the present moment, is highly excited 
in regard to Lotteries. While it would be improper to suffer 
the indignant feelings of an outraged and insulted community 
to influence the action of a discreet and sober legislature, it would 
yet be unwise for such a legislature to neglect to avail itself of 



104 

even a temporary excitement to effect a permanent good. Nei- 
ther justice nor policy would interpose to prevent the passage 
of a salutary statute, merely because circumstances had con- 
spired to show its necessity. The passion for gaming seems to 
be common to a great portion of the human family, in every 
age and country. Traffic in lottery tickets is but one species 
of it; and if all good citizens could be persuaded to discounte- 
nance the practice, and to unite their efforts to prosecute offen- 
ders, the evil, no doubt, would be greatly lessened, if not wholly 
corrected. It is the business of the legislature to encourage such 
as are willing to undertake so unpopular a task to persevere in 
the cause, and, by judicious and constitutional provisions, to ac- 
celerate the progress of reformation and secure the final accom- 
plishment of the purpose in view. 

The Committee are constrained to dissent from the opinion of 
the Attorney General, that the penalties are sufficiently severe. 
One hundred dollars is now the highest fine that can be imposed. 
From information obtained incidentally during an official inves- 
tigation by a public notary, it cannot be doubted that the yearly 
traffic in lottery tickets in the City of Boston alone, amounts to 
more than one million of dollars, and on this, provided the tick- 
ets are genuine, and truly what they purport to be, a comission 
is allowed to the wholesale broker of 25 per cent, amounting in 
the whole sum to $250,000. Now supposing there should be 
forty of these wholesale dealers, (though in fact there is not 
supposed to be half that number) each of them would be in the 
receipt of an annual income of $6,250. Admitting then, that 
either of them should be fined twenty times in a year to the ut- 
most limit of the existing statute, he would still get $4,250 by 
his trade ; a sum larger than the salary of the Governor, the 
Chief Justice, or any other officer of the state government, 
and equal to that of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Very few of our most prosperous and enter- 
prising merchants can count upon such an aggregate of annual 
profit. If the penalties were doubled, the lottery dealer would 
still run the hazard, and continue, in defiance of laws, and courts, 
and prosecuting attorneys, to follow a gainful occupation. 

It is evident, as before intimated in this report, that, to secure 
an entire abolition of the vices and crimes that are believed to 



105 

result from the traffic in lottery tickets, there must be a general 
movement in all the States in this Union. No philanthropist nor 
statesman can reasonably expect an effectual stop to this traffic, 
while a single State shall continue to give it countenance by le- 
gal authority. In order to excite the legislatures of other States, 
which may not yet have passed laws prohibiting the sale of lot- 
tery tickets, to aid us in the work of reformation, the committee 
have deemed it proper, that his Excellency the Governor should 
be requested to communicate the proceedings of this legislature 
to the governors of the several States respectively, and to re- 
quest their co-operation ; and they have accordingly reported 
an order, which they recommend for adoption by this House. 



ERRATA. 

Page 10, line 11, from bottom, for $6,479,136, read $6,854,560. 
" 15, line 10, from top, for legal read illegal. 
" 21, at bottom, add Vide Note 3, Appendix. 
" 22, line 15, from bottom, for as, read at. 
" 24, line 2, from top, for of read for. 

" 67, lines 6 and 11, from bottom, insert the word Company after Union Canal. 

u 74, line 15, from top, insert the words its provisions after secure. 

" 92, at bottom of table, insert Class 24 — 45,760 tickets — price $8 — amount of 

scheme, $366,080 — time of drawing, Nov. 30, 1833 — lowest prize $10 — 

10 drawn ballots. 

Same page, in No. 3, General Summary, &c. for Nov. 16 read Nov. 30, and for 

$5,948,360 read $6,314,440. 
Same page, at bottom, for $33,060,427 read $33,417,507. 



LIBRARY OF 



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